


Sympathy

by phoenix_in_winter



Category: Bandom, Original Work
Genre: Cold, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fever, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Multi, Sneezing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 07:46:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15926003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenix_in_winter/pseuds/phoenix_in_winter
Summary: When they finally got home from last summer’s tour, he’d spent the first four nights on a futon in the middle of the living room floor. He needs that now— wide-open space with sun pouring in and the glint of the lake in the distance. Instead, he coughs his way into consciousness in the suffocating darkness of a tour bus bunk.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2014, and it sometimes shows. Cross-posted for preservation, and because four year later, I still care deeply about these characters. 
> 
> When you trace the origins of this story all the way back, you get to Fall Out Boy:  
>  _I only want sympathy in the form of you crawling into bed with me._

. . .  
. . .

He was never sure anymore which one wore off first, the buzz of performing or the buzz from the alcohol. It all kind of blended together, fuzzy around the edges, from the stage to the dressing room to the bus to wherever they ended up that night and then, eventually, back to the bus and its too-small bunks. It was still weird having a bus. They’d spent years touring in shitty vans, the kind that always seemed to be moments away from dying and, as far as Josh could tell, had collectively decided that 3 to 6 a.m. was exactly the right time to give up the ghost. Before that, they’d piled their gear into the back of Lauren’s beat-up Subaru and Danny’s pickup and squeezed themselves in where they could, but that was back when driving two hours to a gig was a Big Fucking Deal. Somehow, they hadn’t realized that there would be a hell of a lot of driving, and a hell of a lot of work, between booking a show in the next city over and actually pulling off a national tour.

Josh hadn’t minded the van. It was a lot like the couch in his parents’ basement, which was lumpy and stained and smelled like weed and spilled beer and had this one spring that would stick you in the back if you flopped down on it wrong. You got used to it, and then you kind of didn’t want anything else, because it was wrapped up in everything else that happened down there, like the night in tenth grade that Ian had looked up from Halo with wide eyes and said, “ _Dude_ , we should start a band.” They hadn’t done much about it until halfway through college, but the idea had been planted there on that lumpy couch, so. It was special. Or something. He shook his head and took a swig of beer. Jesus, he was getting emotional over a couch. They’d been on the road too long.

A new song came on and the mood in the house shifted, people moving around through a haze of smoke and sweat. He could see through the kitchen that the back door was open, but the cool air wasn’t even coming close to the spot he’d staked out halfway up the carpeted stairs. He contemplated moving, but didn’t actually get up until Ian smacked his arm, spilling beer on his shirtsleeve because his other hand was intertwined with some guy’s that Josh didn’t know. He was pretty sure the guy was local, so he probably knew the people whose house they were in, whose names were… fuck. Josh had no idea. He was pretty sure there was a Travis in there somewhere. Either way, Ian was the one pulling this guy up the stairs, which was… no, that was just about right.

“Dude!” Ian was yelling over the music. Josh raised his eyebrows expectantly, then looked pointedly at the wet spot on his shirt. “Sorry!” Ian said, the mystery guy caught up to him now, their hands twisted up behind Ian’s back. The guy had his cheek pressed against Ian’s shoulder, nipping at his shirt with his teeth. “It’s gorgeous outside.” He gestured with his free hand, managing to keep the beer in the bottle this time. “Nathan’s out there. On the porch. Danny, too, I think.” He smiled, but his attention was back on Hookup Guy. Ian had let his bangs fall over his eyes, and Josh almost laughed because it was the exact same move Ian pulled with the crowd every night, slender hands wrapped around the mic and dark eyes peering out from behind a veil of sweat-soaked hair. It worked. It always worked. The guy was pushing him up the stairs, still grinning into Ian’s shoulder. “Bus call’s at 9,” Ian called back, like Josh was the one who was in danger of not making it back in time. Josh raised his empty beer in salute.

The back porch was cool and calm after the crush of people inside. Not that there were any fewer people outside, but most of them had spilled out onto the lawn, leaving Nathan sitting more or less alone on the picnic table in the center of the deck. He raised his beer in greeting, and Josh sat down next to him, feet on the wooden bench. Nathan gestured vaguely toward the house. “Where’s everybody else?”

“Lauren’s making out with what’s-his-name, the singer for the local openers,” Josh said, ticking them off on his fingers. “Danny’s… somewhere; I saw him like half an hour ago. Ian just disappeared upstairs with some guy.”

Nathan nodded sagely. “Trevor.” He drained the last of his beer and then held the empty bottle up to look at it as if he could refill it through sheer force of will. “It was between him and Natasha, with the spiky hair?” He grinned, giving up on the bottle. “She tried, but Trevor lives here. Home field advantage.”

“Home _bed_ advantage.” Josh went back to counting off band members. “Ian’s upstairs, and you’re here, and I’m here, so…” He squinted at his fingers, trying to figure out how he’d gotten to six. That wasn’t right.

Nathan laughed. “So that’s everyone.” He hopped up off the table. “Want another beer?”

“Sure.” Josh eyed the distance to the garbage bag tied to the porch railing, took aim with his empty bottle, and missed. The bottle went rolling off the edge of the porch, under the railing. Whoops. He didn’t hear it break, so it must’ve landed on the grass. He looked for it from his perch on the table for about five seconds before giving up and staring out into the crowd.

Everyone down on the lawn was swaying, pushing up against each other, hands briefly clasped in greeting, couples kissing, pulling close and then coming apart, and the music was pounding and his head with it. It almost looked like they were dancing. It was making him dizzy. He closed his eyes.

Josh jumped when something _freezing cold_ touched the back of his hand; when he opened his eyes he realized it was the beer that he’d asked for but hadn’t really wanted. He took a halfhearted sip before carefully setting it down on the picnic table next to his hip.

It felt like an hour, but a glance at his phone (okay, three glances; he couldn’t get the numbers in focus at first) told him he’d only been outside for ten minutes when Danny came out for a smoke. He balanced the lit cigarette on the ashtray behind them to pull off his sweatshirt, balling it up on the table behind him when he sat down next to Josh.

Danny looked around, pushing his hair out of his eyes with a strong, brown hand, cigarette glowing between his fingers. He nodded approvingly, picking up Josh’s abandoned beer without asking. “Turned out good.”

Nathan rolled his eyes. “It better have; it’s not like you gave Trevor and them much of a say about any of this.” People had a hard time saying no to Danny, even before all the coattails-of-fame shit started. He took over a room. Or, Josh supposed, in this case, a house. He could be kind of a dick about it, but people liked him anyway. Hell, Josh liked him anyway. Life was just more exciting with Danny around.

Danny’s t-shirt was dark with sweat, but Josh was starting to shiver. It felt like it had dropped ten degrees since he’d come outside, and his sweatshirt was back on the bus. Danny’s, though, was right next to him, pinned under Danny’s palm where he was leaning back on one hand, the beer and his half-finished cigarette both held in the other. Josh shivered again, way down deep in his core. It set his stomach on edge. He reached for Danny’s sweatshirt, tugging at it until Danny leaned forward and let it go, still focused on scanning the crowd.

Josh was taller than Danny by a good couple of inches, but Danny was jacked, with huge drummer’s arms and wide shoulders, so the sweatshirt was more than big enough. Josh burrowed inside of the fabric, head down, and resisted the urge to check the time again.

“Yo, Paredes!” He jerked up even though the guy was talking to Danny, beckoning him back inside to look at… something. His head was fuzzy. He maybe shouldn’t’ve done those shots earlier. Whatever. Danny ground the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray and got up to follow the guy, clapping Josh on the shoulder on the way out, taking over the room again with his easy, cocky smile.

Nathan was looking at him, considering, running a hand over his buzzed blond hair. “You ready to go back?”

Josh did look at his phone then. “It’s only 12:30.”

Nathan shrugged. “Kara has to work tomorrow; she said she was heading out soon. We can get a ride with her.”

Josh shivered again. “Yeah, okay.”

“Okay.” Nathan nodded decisively, then pushed himself up and went back into the house, presumably to find Kara. Josh pulled his hands into the sleeves of Danny’s sweatshirt, wishing he could skip the car ride and just be back on the bus, curled up in his bunk. He always felt a little claustrophobic in there, but at least he could bury himself in his comforter and pull the curtain and sleep.

Nathan reappeared with Kara following close behind, digging in her purse for her keys. “Ready?” she asked, smiling at Josh like they’d known each other for more than a couple of hours.

“Ready.”

Nathan called shotgun and Josh didn’t fight him on it, climbing into the backseat and stretching out sideways, letting his head fall back against the window. Too many beers. Too many shots, probably. Normally it was fine. Normally it took the edge off. He hadn’t needed it back when they were driving around in Lauren’s Subaru, or even when they got their first van, the green one where the electric panel was messed up and all the alert lights were on all the time, blinding you in the dark. The audiences had been smaller, then, and hadn’t been… well. They hadn’t needed security back then. Josh sighed and rolled his neck. His throat was raw from yelling over the music at the show and then at the party, and his head ached.

It was only fifteen minutes back to the bus, but Josh was almost asleep when they got there. He started when Nathan smacked his knee— “We’re here”— remembered to thank Kara, and then stumbled after Nathan to the bus, letting him punch in the code and following him up the steps.

“Call of Duty?” Nathan was already headed for the back lounge.

Josh shook his head and had to clear his throat before any sound came out. “Nah. I’m going to bed.”

Nathan shrugged and pushed through the curtain to the back lounge, grabbing the controller and flopping onto the couch. Josh got as far as pulling off his sneakers and jeans before burrowing under the covers, pulling Danny’s sweatshirt tighter around him. He was asleep before the Xbox even finished starting up.

. . .

He woke up to the sound of people trying to be quiet and utterly failing. Ian was shushing Lauren, who was protesting in not-actually-a-whisper that _“Dude, you’re being way louder than me.”_ She was interrupted by an affronted shriek from Ian and a _thud_ on the floor that sounded suspiciously like a shoe.

“ _Oww_ , Nate, what the hell?”

“Exactly,” Nathan growled, voice muffled in his pillow. “What the hell.”

“Seriously, Ian, it’s too early for this shit.” Isaiah was always up before everyone else – as tour manager, it was kind of in his job description – so if he was still in bed… “It’s only, like, six,” Isaiah said through a yawn. “Figured you guys wouldn’t be back ’til five of nine. If that.”

“Hey, it's not _my_ fault we're back.” No, of course not. Nothing was ever Ian's fault. “Lauren's the one who accosted me on my way to the bathroom. Why aren't you yelling at her?”

Josh could picture Lauren raking her fingers through her hair in frustration, pulling the purple streak at her temple away from the blond and letting it fall. “Because you're the one whining like a five-year-old? Not all of us were lucky enough to sleep with the hosts. Or sleep at all. That recliner was, like, a hundred years old.”

Josh rolled his eyes. They'd be at it for another half hour. He was on the verge of falling back asleep in spite of the noise when he realized that the rawness in his throat had only gotten worse since last night. _Damn._ At least he didn’t have to sing. Well, except for on the outro of “Tonight,” but that was him and Nathan backing up Ian and Lauren, and the whole crowd would be screaming along, so – oh – shit – _ih-SHU!_ He barely got his hands up in time, muffling the sudden sneeze into his sweatshirt sleeves. _t-CHU! CHU!_ He froze, fully awake now, but Ian and Lauren had moved on to arguing about whether recliners even existed a hundred years ago, so he was pretty sure no one had heard. It wouldn't last — secrets were non-existent on the bus — but for now, he just wanted to go back to sleep without this becoming a _thing_.

He sniffled and coughed as quietly as he could, wiping his nose with the back of his hand where he’d pulled it into his sleeve. Wait — no. Danny’s sleeve. Fuck. He stared at the fabric, uncertain, then rubbed at it with the other sleeve, which... oh, Jesus. That just made it worse. He let his hands fall back against the blankets. At this point, it was a lost cause. He’d just have to wash the thing in, like, scalding hot water the next time they did laundry. He sniffed hard, trying to stop his nose from running down over his lip. When were they going to do laundry, anyway? Maybe... _heh_. Maybe... next... he gave in as his breath began to hitch again, pulling the neck of the sweatshirt up over his nose and mouth, hand pressed tight against it to muffle the sound. _hih… tchmp! hih-chmph! hih-hih… huh… uhhhh… TCHMPHH!_ Ugh. Josh coughed into his sleeve, wiped his nose against his wrist onto a relatively clean patch of fabric, and managed to fall back asleep right around the time that Nathan’s other shoe went flying down the aisle.

The next time he woke up, it was to the sound of Ian moaning in protest above him. He pulled back the curtain, squinting in the light, and found... cargo shorts. He wiped his nose on his sleeve yet again (he was definitely going to have to find tissues soon, or at least a bandanna or something) and stuck his head out of the bunk, peering upward. Isaiah was above him, leaning his elbows on Ian’s bunk directly overhead, neat shoulder-length dreads brushing against the bright orange t-shirt from last summer’s tour. “Ian. You’re leaving in ten minutes. Lauren’s already ready. Get. The fuck. Up.” Ian made some unintelligible noise and Isaiah threw up his hands in exasperation, then looked down at Josh. “You tell him. He listens to you.”

“Since when?” he muttered hoarsely. He coughed, trying to clear his throat. “Ian. Go do the goddamn interview.” He choked on the last few words, buried his face in the blanket, and gave into the coughing fit that had been threatening since he woke up.

Isaiah was looking down at him warningly. “Tell me you’re not sick.”

“I’m… not sick?” He’d managed to stop coughing, but he knew he sounded pathetic. He scrubbed at his nose, trying not to sneeze.

Ian did poke his head out then. “You’re sick?”

“I’m fi… _heh. Fuh.. ih…HIH-chuh!_ ” He sniffed sharply. “Fine.”

Ian rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay— hey— HEY! Not fair!” Isaiah had taken advantage of the distraction and was pulling Ian out of bed by his shoulders. Ian fought it, but he was so much smaller than Isaiah that he was tumbling off the bunk in seconds. Josh had to roll in toward the wall to avoid being kicked on the way down, and he took the opportunity to stifle two more sneezes between pinched fingers and thumb: _hik-chxxt. huh-CHngt._ Ugh. Always in threes. When he rolled back over, Ian was standing up sulkily, pushing himself up with a hand on Josh’s bunk. “You could’ve killed me.”

“I will kill you, one of these days.” Isaiah looked Ian up and down, determined that he was all in one piece and unlikely to climb back into bed, and pushed through the curtain that divided the bunks from the front of the bus, muttering something about coffee.

Ian yawned and stretched, flipping off Isaiah through the curtain and groaning dramatically when several joints popped. “Alright. I guess I’m off to do this interview.” Josh raised his eyebrows at Ian's t-shirt and boxer briefs. “Yes, in my underwear. Fuck you.” He reached back up into his bunk, pulling down his skinny jeans from last night. He paused, jeans in hand, and squatted down to Josh’s level, studying him. “So. You okay?”

Josh shrugged.

“Sick?”

Josh shrugged again, but it was an admission this time.

Ian made a face. “Sucks.”

Josh laughed hoarsely at the understatement. “Yeah.”

“Don’t tell Danny, he’ll freak out. Even though he _never freaking gets sick,_ so I don’t know what he’s complaining about.” Ian stood up, hopping on one foot as he pulled on his jeans. He ran a hand through his hair, then bent down to Josh again. “I’ll be back in a little bit, ’kay?”

Josh wanted to tell him that he wasn’t 12 anymore; he didn’t need Ian to climb into bed with him and play video games and talk about music and the latest UFO shit he’d seen on the History channel until Josh fell asleep like that time he’d had pneumonia in seventh grade. Instead, he just closed his eyes. “Okay.”

. . .

The front lounge was quiet. That was weird. It took a second for Josh to pull all the fuzzy memories back together: Ian, Lauren, and Isaiah were at that interview, which should probably be wrapping up by now. Danny had emerged from the back lounge to get coffee half an hour ago, looked at Josh's pile of blankets and tissues with intense suspicion, and disappeared back through the curtain around the same time as Nathan had wandered past with a distracted, “Hey.” Josh hadn't seen him since. He was probably over on the crew bus; he hung out with those guys a lot.

Normally, Josh would have relished an hour or two in as close to solitude as you could get on tour—even the bus driver was gone. Once he'd lowered himself onto the couch and leaned his head back, though, he'd decided that not moving sounded pretty great, and had settled for sort of staring blankly at the ceiling, coffee going cold on the table next to the slightly crushed but thankfully still mostly-full box of tissues.

He shifted, but couldn't really get comfortable; his nose was running endlessly onto his upper lip, and his head ached. The best option seemed to be closing his eyes and drifting, getting halfway back to sleep between futile sniffs. Okay. That was better... until he started awake with a forceful, uncovered _hihSHUU!_ A gasping breath, then two more wet, spraying sneezes completed the set: _uhhhh...CHU! tCHU!_ He was still a little out of it, struggling to catch up with his own body, when he snapped forward again: _hih-CHUU! Oww._ He pressed the heel of his hand up against his temple, scowling. Fuck. That had been four. He was supposed to sneeze in threes. Pollen in the South, Lauren's cat, anything hot at their favorite Indian place, going out the back exit at the movie theater in the middle of the day — it was beyond reliable; always sets of three. Even those ambiguous not-quite-colds he sniffled distractedly through every February usually followed the rules. When he was well and truly sick, though, all bets were off. He ran a hand under his nose, groaned, and reached for the tissues yet again.

He had just finished cleaning himself up when the bus door opened. Oh. Ian's jaw was set, and Lauren's hand was hovering at the small of his back, carefully never quite touching. Isaiah pulled a hand down his face, paused as if he was going to say something, shook his head, turned back around. On his way back out the door, he muttered something that ended with "...show tonight," which — right. Show tonight. Josh had briefly managed to forget. He swallowed thickly and forced himself to keep his eyes open, raising his eyebrows expectantly at Lauren. Ian had started pacing. Lauren shook her head: _Wait for it._ Josh let his eyes flutter closed again, listening to Ian's footsteps and the sound of muffled video game gunfire from the back lounge, until he felt the couch dip under him. Ian was pressing his face into the blankets covering Josh's legs. “Fucking hate interviews.”

Josh glanced up at Lauren, willing her not to say "No, you don't." Ian loved any chance to turn on the charm, the bigger the audience the better, and on-camera interviews were the perfect combination of a big audience and up-close-and-personal attention. Usually. By the way Lauren was glowering, though, even Ian's charisma hadn't been able to save this one.

“Hate them,” Ian repeated to Josh's knee. Josh let one hand come down to settle between Ian's shoulder blades, dragging the other under his nose. Lauren flopped down at the table across from them, rubbing her temples. “It was pretty bad.”

Ian huffed out a breath in frustration and imitated the interviewer: “'So, Ian, where are you from?'” He glared at the imaginary reporter. “Fucking Michigan, same as the last two thousand times I've been asked.”

“The guy knew nothing about our music.” Lauren's voice was tight. “Flat out ignored me, and the tour, and any intelligent questions. All he wanted to talk about was who Ian sleeps with — including me, apparently, still? — and the 'mystery' of Ian's origins.” She waggled her fingers as if she were a fortune teller, then put her head back in her hands.

“Fucking idiot,” Josh agreed hoarsely. He kept his hand moving steadily on Ian's back.

Ian nodded into the blankets, his dark hair clinging to the staticy fleece. “At least this guy didn't actually say the word 'exotic' out loud.” People's inability to neatly categorize Ian's race meant he'd been fielding indelicate-to-offensive questions since they were kids. Most of the time, he was happy to talk about his heritage (“a quarter Korean, a little Caribbean, mostly European mutt”), but this same interview had played out so many times over the last couple of years that it was amazing Ian— or Lauren— hadn't punched anyone out yet.

“Small comforts,” Josh said. He leaned his head back against the couch and let his eyes close again.

“Or something,” Lauren muttered. Josh heard her push herself up from the table. “Ugh. I just need to go shoot something after that.” Her footsteps faded as she headed to the back lounge to join Danny.

Ian sighed and flipped over to face the ceiling. Josh let his hand settle onto Ian's chest for a second before his breath hitched again and he had to bring up both hands to steeple them over his nose and mouth. _huh...heh._ He rubbed his knuckles under his nose, hard, mentally cursing the sneeze that had disappeared. It rushed back as soon as he started to put his hands down, and he barely got them back up in time to cover the spray: _heh-TSHHH!_ His head pounded at the sudden pressure. “Bless you,” Ian offered, but Josh shook his head. _hah-CH! CH! tCHH!_ He paused to make sure it was over before carefully lowering his hands and reaching for the tissue box. He pulled out half a dozen, wiping off his hands, then his upper lip, and finally blowing his nose. "Bless," Ian repeated belatedly, rubbing a wrist under his own nose in sympathy.

"Ugh. I should be in quarantine or something." Josh added the tissues to the steadily growing pile on the side table. "You're getting all my germs." He thought about trying to wriggle away, but he was already in the corner of the couch, Ian sprawled out across the rest.

Ian shrugged. "Too late. If it's gonna happen, there's no stopping it now." He looked up. "You gonna be okay for tonight?"

Josh shrugged back. "I've played through worse." They all had.

Ian nodded and stretched, yawning widely. There was a moment of quiet where Josh thought Ian was going to throw an arm over his eyes and go back to sleep, but his face darkened instead. "That fucking press guy. Jesus. Like, clearly you're terrible at your job, just go dig ditches or something."

"Ditches?"

"Graves. Dig graves. For dead people. They don't care." Ian was quiet for a moment, clearly still steaming. Josh jumped when Ian hit his fist against the back of the couch in frustration. _"Fuck."_

"People suck."

"No, this guy sucked more than average. And he was a complete dick to Lauren, too. Like she was just my... girlfriend, or something, along for the ride, and not, y'know, one-fifth of the band."

Oh. She had said that, too, and he'd just let it... slip by. Fuck. He sort of knew that there was shit Lauren had to put up with that the rest of them didn't, but mostly, he just didn't think about it. Even when she told him it was happening, apparently. He glanced uneasily toward the curtains hiding the bunks, not really sure how to take that one back.

"I'm just." Ian was starting to wind down, pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Way too tired to deal with this shit today."

"We've got a few hours." They were only two hours away from the city they'd played last night; the interview had been at lunchtime and they didn't have to be at sound check until late afternoon. "Go back to sleep, and then when you wake up, pretend all that shit happened yesterday. Or didn't happen at all."

"Yeah. Okay." Josh had thought Ian might get up and crawl back into his bunk, sleep for real, but Ian just rolled back over, adjusting the blanket to make Josh's leg a better pillow. Josh rolled his eyes and reached for another handful of tissues to blow his nose.

"...I thought Lauren was going to punch that guy."

Josh coughed, then coughed again, first into his fist and then into his elbow when the cough turned deep and chesty. "Maybe she should've. Deterrent for the next one."

"Deterrent for our careers." Ian sighed, shifting restlessly against Josh's leg and dragging a wrist under his nose again. "Just wish..." he trailed off, gesturing lazily with his hand, eyes closed.

"Yeah," Josh said, waiting for Ian to still before dropping his head back again. "I know."

. . .

_> hey_

Josh squinted at his phone, which he had somehow managed to extricate from his front pocket without waking up Ian— he'd complained a little when Josh pushed his hips up to get at his phone, but had settled in a second later. When Josh swiped at the message icon, the name in bold said **Kate**.

_> how's... wherever you are?_

_Pittsburgh. Ish_  
_Dunno. Haven't left the bus._

 _> you should while you can _  
_> before you have to drive thru PA_

 _Yeah, that's tomorrow_  
_How were the kids yesterday?_

Oh, wait, today was Sunday. He couldn’t keep track of time on tour; he just followed everyone else around and hoped for the best.

 _> all i can say is _  
_> thank god for spring break _  
_> but the friday before SUCKS_

Josh intended to reply, but he was cut off when he started coughing, hard and sudden, before he could get a hand up to cover his mouth.

 _> on the upside like a third of the kids left for vacation already and skipped _  
_> so there weren't as many to deal with._

Josh had been trying to be quiet, but gave up when he couldn't catch his breath. He sat up, pushing himself away from the back of the couch, and— there. Ugh. He spat into a tissue and pressed the back of his wrist into his watering eyes. When he looked up, Ian was watching him with sleepy concern.

"You good?"

Josh tried a careful breath, and it didn't catch. "Yeah, I'm good." He put down his phone so that he could pull both hands down his face and rub at his swollen throat.

"Kate!" Apparently Ian had picked up the phone as soon as he'd put it down.

"Yeah." Josh held out his hand, but Ian ignored him and started texting furiously. Josh let himself fall back against the couch and looked over Ian's shoulder. At his own phone. His life was weird sometimes.

_hiiii Kate!_

Josh rolled his eyes and let Ian take over the conversation. When he looked back again, Ian had just hit send on _Did this idiot tell you he's sick?_

Josh groaned. "Come on, Ian, just—"

_> oh is that why he hasn't left the bus?_

_No it's because Pittsburgh is a terrible awful godforsaken place_

_> WATCH IT that's my state you're talking about_

Ian looked up, dubious. "Your girlfriend likes Pittsburgh. We can't be friends."

Josh coughed again, but it wasn't violent this time. "You and me or you and her?"

"Either. Any of the above."

"Well if it helps, she doesn't actually like Pittsburgh. You're just not allowed to insult it because you're not from PA." He dragged his wrist under his nose. "And she's not my girlfriend."

Ian's eyebrows disappeared up under the curls of his bangs.

"She's..." He didn't actually know what they were.

"You're dating." Ian said it slowly, like maybe Josh didn't have a great grasp on English. "Therefore, she's your girlfriend."

"You have to be in the same place to date." He had a whole list of reasons why whatever they were doing wasn't _really_ dating, but he was interrupted when Isaiah stuck his head through the bus door. Whatever. It wasn't like he and Ian hadn't had this conversation before.

"Sound check in ten. Get your shit together." Isaiah's head disappeared for a second, then popped back up. "Here." He chucked something in Josh's direction, which Josh failed to catch.

"Oww!" He sucked on his finger where the cardboard had scraped it. "I need those fingers, asshole."

Isaiah shrugged, unconcerned. "You need to not be dripping snot all over the stage." Which. Yeah.

Josh was grumbling in the general direction of where Isaiah's hair had been, turning the box of cold meds over in his hands, when Ian dropped the phone in his lap. "Don't worry, I told her you loved her."

"You—" He stopped, suspicious. "You didn't."

Ian laughed. "Nah. I told her you'd text her after the show."

Josh closed his eyes and blew out a breath. Normally he'd give Ian a harder time, especially for just about giving him a heart attack, but it was just too much work today. "Yeah. I will." He sighed and opened his eyes, pushing himself to his feet. "Sou— _uh._ " Standing up had shifted something in his sinuses, and— _"huh. Soudd—"_ He shook his head, which just— made— _heh-CHXX!_ Oh, shit, gross— _uh-CHNGT!_ He grabbed another handful of tissues, cheeks burning even though this was far from the most embarrassing state Ian had ever seen him in.

"Yeah, I know, sound check." Ian was holding out the box of meds. "Drugs, dude."

Josh cleared his throat and sniffed, testing. "Hate that shit. Makes my head all weird."

"Better than..." Ian gestured at the mess of Kleenex in Josh's hand. "That."

Fine. He took the box and squinted at the back. Four to six hours. "Well, it's not gonna do any good before sound check, and anyway, if I take it now it'll wear off right in the middle of the show."

Ian took the box from him, reading it for himself. "Okay, so take it an hour before we go on. That'll get you through the show and back on the bus after. Advil now, though, yeah?"

Somehow, he'd forgotten that was an option. "Fuck, yeah."

Ian grinned, already opening the kitchen cupboard and reaching for the bottle of pills.

. . .

He snuffled and hacked his way through sound check, grateful that it was _loud_ and he wasn't on mic. His ears were weird, stuffed up, and his in-ears made it worse. Playing without them wasn't really an option, though, so he gritted it out. He was just grateful that everybody else was on top of things, and there were no equipment issues, and it was over soon enough. He and Ian had showed up late enough that everyone else was set and he'd only had to endure concerned looks from Lauren and Nathan rather than a full-on interrogation. He'd caught Danny eying him a couple of times, so who knew, maybe he did care, but he'd given Josh a wide berth when they were done, heading straight from the drum kit to the dressing room. Ian and Lauren had a couple of harmony things to work out, so he found himself walking out with Nate.

"You gonna make it?" Nathan was watching him out of the corner of his eye.

"Yup." He was buried in a wad of tissues again, coughing up phlegm, so maybe it wasn't the most convincing answer. "I'm gonna drug myself up in a minute here," he added, trying to sound reassuring. "It'll fuck me up, but at least I'll be less of a biohazard."

Nathan shrugged, phone out, poised to hit _call_ next to his wife's name. "Don't worry about it, man. I know you can play a solid show no matter what you're on." He had his phone up to his ear before Josh could decide whether that was a dig at his drinking habits or not.

Josh spent the couple of hours before the show mostly sunk back in the corner of the dressing room couch, sipping at Gatorade he couldn't really taste and playing with his phone so that he didn't have to talk to anyone. After a particularly epic sneezing fit, he escaped to the bathroom to clean himself up and try to recover his dignity. Everyone politely ignored him when he came out, except for Lauren, who pressed a palm to his forehead. Her hand didn't feel particularly cold, so he figured she was just being dramatic when she narrowed her eyes at him.

"I'm _fine_." He pushed her hand away, but gently.

"Okay." She looked only half-appeased. "Meds soon, though, yeah?"

He glanced at his phone. The openers were about to go on. "Yeah."

She rocked up on her toes and kissed his temple, a brief touch that reminded him of when they'd first started playing together. She'd had to toughen up since then. She was badass, now. Hell, she'd been badass then, just in a quieter way. A way that would've gotten her crushed as a woman in the industry, so, yeah, she'd toughened up. She was still Lauren, still great, but he missed the old version of her sometimes.

It took a nudge from Ian for Josh to actually push the pills through their foil backing and swallow them with the last of the Gatorade. By the time Isaiah motioned them toward the door, he had gone through what felt like a half a box of tissues, but he could breathe through his nose for the first time all day. He steadied himself against the headrush of standing up and followed Danny's broad shoulders toward the stage.

The show was fine. Good, even, objectively. Ian was just _on_ , smoldering at the crowd and then commanding them to jump, feet flying in time with theirs. When Josh looked over at Lauren, she was smiling in a way that he only saw when she was playing, fingers wandering easily on the frets of the bass, flipping her hair out of her face and pressing up against the mic when it was her turn to sing. Danny looked ferocious, all of his aggression channeled into perfectly timed hits. Nathan was concentrating, head down, eyes watching his fingers execute a particularly difficult solo and looking pleased with himself when it came out right. Josh felt like he was floating. He only stumbled once, on the bridge of "Amsterdam," missing a progression that he'd had down for months. It wasn't exposed, though, and he jumped back in at the chorus and everything was fine. He felt weird and dizzy and disconnected, and wondered if he was hyperventilating from the shock of being able to breathe. He didn't sing on "Tonight," just let the crowd scream it back to Ian while Lauren's countermelody wound its way through, and the end of their set took him by surprise. When the tech came for his guitar, he handed it over and blindly followed everyone else down the hall to the dressing room, where he sat on the couch and drank the Gatorade that someone pushed into his hand. Everyone else was going out, he thought, but Lauren was kind enough to pull him up from the couch and push him in the direction of the bus before they left. Nathan followed him a minute later, on the phone with Ellie again, and Josh lay in his bunk listening to Nate's half of the conversation and wondering how on earth they made it work. He remembered with a start that he was supposed to text Kate, but couldn't find the energy to pull out his phone, let alone come up with something coherent to say. He sighed and rolled over, pressing his face into his pillow. Tomorrow. He'd text her tomorrow.

. . .  
. . .


	2. Chapter 2

. . .  
. . .

Bus call was at 2 a.m., so Josh came to briefly when Ian fumbled climbing up into the top bunk, but it was 10:00 before he was awake enough to actually get out of bed. He made it as far as the couch—it was starting to feel like his own personal infectious nest—and was about to text Kate when he decided that he'd have to do better than that to make up for never getting back to her last night. He pulled up Skype and she answered his _you awake?_ with _almost... video?_

 _yeah i just can't talk_  
_everybody else is around and my voice is fucked_

He got a quick _k_ in return and had just enough time to dig his headphones out of the mess on the side table before the call came through. She was still in bed, eyes half-open and auburn hair a mess on the pillow, the lace of her tanktop just visible at the bottom of the screen. She smiled sleepily and his heart twisted. Fuck. _Fuck,_ he just wanted to be there, in her bed, face buried in her hair and in that lace and just—

"You okay?" Her voice through the headphones was full of sleepy concern.

He swallowed, and nodded. He had to hold it together, especially when Danny was at the counter making coffee and Nathan was sitting at the table a few feet away, poking at his cereal with one hand and his phone with the other. He attempted a smile.

 _yeah_  
_fine_  
_i mean_  
_still sick_  
_but it's fine_

She nodded sympathetically. "How was the show?"

 _it was good_  
_Ian locked eyes with some guy in the front row and i thought the kid was going to pass out_

Kate laughed. "He does have that effect on people."

 _always has_  
_how's spring break?_

"A-MAZ-ing." She stretched, her tanktop pulling tight. "I haven't slept in this long since, well, Christmas break, I think."

 _good_  
_you deserve it :-)_

He pulled back from the computer with a brief _huhh..._ and managed to grab a handful of tissues from the box on the side table before exploding with a forceful _chngtt!_ He hadn't meant to stifle, but the congestion in his nose had settled into something solid overnight. Possibly a cement wall. He was left panting for a moment, enough time to get a "Gesundheit" from Nathan and a "Bless you" from Kate before launching into another: _huh. CHHT!_ He blew his nose, hard, and at least some of the wall gave way.

"That looked like it hurt." Oh. He'd forgotten for a moment that he was on video too. He nodded, wiping at his nose with the tissue and his eyes with the back of his hand. His headache was back in full force. They had another show tonight that he was _not_ looking forward to. At all.

Ian emerged from the bunk area, coughing, and flopped down next to Josh, because there was no such thing as a private conversation on this bus. Kate raised an eyebrow. "Is he sick too?"

Instead of answering, Josh took out one of the headphones and stuck it in Ian's ear, then motioned for Kate to repeat the question. "Ian. Are you sick too?"

"What?" He looked startled at the idea. "No. I'm good. This is what I get for smoking at the party last night."

"You need that voice. Don't fuck it up."

"Yeah, yeah." He coughed again, into his fist, turning his head away from the screen. "Ugh, what I need right now is coffee. Will we see you in Boston?"

"Yup! I'm flying out on Wednesday. You guys get there on Friday, right?"

"Mhmm. Two shows, two hotel nights; it's gonna be _awesome_."

When Ian had wandered in the direction of coffee and Josh was back in possession of both earbuds, Kate grinned and waggled her eyebrows. "Hotel night."

Josh grinned back and raised two fingers: _two_ hotel nights. Between the band and crew, there were enough ties to Boston to justify playing two shows there. Small venues, but still. After that, it was back across the country through the South, so Isaiah had agreed to a second night in real beds before they were all stuck on the bus together for weeks and weeks, driving for way longer between cities than they ever had to in the Northeast. Kate grinned again, dirty, dragging her lip between her teeth. "You better be better by then."

Josh turned up his hands in a gesture that was meant to convey both _damn right I'd better be better by then_ and _you think I'd be sick right now if I had any say in any of this?_ Before he could get any further, though, Lauren was sitting down next to him on the couch, hands curled around a coffee mug. She'd barely sat down before she pushed the mug out in front of her, still holding it steady with both hands, and sneezed, uncovered and girly— _hi-chiew!_ —toward her lap.

Kate's eyes widened at Josh. "They are gonna _kill_ you."

He practically jumped at the computer to pound out a response: _NOT MY FAULT._

Lauren sniffed a few times but seemed unconcerned and otherwise fine. She leaned in, reading over his shoulder. "What's not your fault?"

"Nothing." His voice was wrecked and it hurt his throat to talk. "Everything. Nothing is my fault. I'm completely innocent." Kate was laughing, head tipped back. Josh tried to clear his throat, but it turned into coughing.

Lauren took the opportunity to pull the headphones out of their jack. "Hi Kate! See you in Boston?"

Josh closed his eyes, still coughing in jerky fits. Hadn't they _just_ done this? Jesus, he should just livestream his Skype calls to the whole bus. He jerked his eyes open when a cold hand made contact with his forehead, followed by a less-cold wrist.

"Nah. He's warmer than me, but my hands are always freezing, even with the coffee." She held up the mug. "He'll live." Great. His band and his... not-girlfriend were in cahoots. He glared at his computer screen.

"Sorry," she said, looking decidedly not sorry. "Just had to make sure you weren't going to keel over on stage. I know you guys are always looking for publicity, but that's probably not the best way to get it."

"Okay!" Isaiah had appeared on the bus stairs and clapped his hands together like he was a kindergarten teacher or something. "Who's ready for press?" Lauren huffed a derisive laugh, but Isaiah just stabbed a finger in her direction. "It's going to be better this time."

"You don't know that." Ian had appeared in the doorway from the bunks, dressed, coffee still in his hands, and glowering.

"Well, it can't be much worse. So! Let's go. They want everyone."

Josh looked up, incredulous. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. Sorry, dude. You don't have to talk, just... show up and try to look human."

Kate had been typing, and her message appeared on screen underneath the confusion.

 _Go do press_  
_Feel better xo_

She blew a kiss and waved, waiting just long enough for him to wave back before hitting the "end call" button. He stared at the screen, frustration rising.

Isaiah was still trying to get them all moving. "You decent under all those blankets, Miller?" Josh nodded. "Good. Hey, Danny!"

The movie in the back lounge paused. "What?"  
  
"Time to go!" Then, under his breath: "Like herding fucking cats."

. . .

They let him stay out of the sound booth at the radio station during the interview, mostly because he kept trying to breathe through his nose and that was _not_ a sound anyone wanted to hear. He had to do the acoustic set, but only his guitar was miked, so it was okay. And they split up the songs, with a commercial break and another bit of interview in between, so he had time to disappear to the bathroom and try to deal with his nose. He spent the rest of the time shadowing Isaiah, trying not to get too close—as much as Isaiah was trying to be nice about it, it was obvious that he was trying very hard not to breathe the same air as Josh. Not that Josh could blame him for that. The whole breathing thing was becoming a problem. He finally slid down against the wall he'd been leaning against and leaned his head against some piece of equipment he probably wasn't supposed to be touching, letting everyone else's words wash over him. He opened his eyes when the DJ was interrupted by a quick _hi-chiew!_ , followed by laughter and blessings and fawning from the DJ's co-host about how cute Lauren's sneeze was. Isaiah wasn't laughing. He was looking at Josh with the sort of raised eyebrows a teacher uses to indicate _profound_ disappointment. Josh shrank back, dragging a wrist under his nose and pulling out his phone to text Kate: _You're right. They're going to kill me._

. . .  
. . .

"...And I missed the Dsus in the third chorus; how does that even happen? I mean, it's the third chorus, by _definition_ I've played it twice in the past two minutes, god _damn_." Nathan shook his head and stared at his fingers like they would be able to answer him.

Danny threw an arm around his shoulders, as much to stop the broken-record loop as out of affection. "Nate. You're fine. It's fine. Seriously, no one's going to know."

"It's going up on the radio station's website! People can watch it in HD. _Hear_ it in HD."

Josh was coming up the steps behind them, but he might as well have been able to see Danny's eyeroll. "C'mon." Danny pushed Nathan ahead of him through the curtains and into the back lounge.

Josh didn’t follow them back. He got as far as the kitchen counter and just leaned up against it, staring vaguely past Lauren, who had gone straight for the tissues on the sidetable. Ian was behind her. He looked beat. He brushed past Josh and through the curtains, but Josh wasn’t sure whether he made it to the back lounge or only as far as his bunk. Or Josh’s bunk, which was equally likely. And didn’t require a ladder.

Isaiah had stopped halfway up the stairs, his elbows on the barrier that separated the steps from the front lounge and one hand rubbing distractedly at his nose. “Okay. We’ve got a couple of hours before we have to head over to the venue.” He paused and sniffed, appraising Josh and Lauren. “I sent Maddie to go find a drugstore. You two… I don’t know. Go to sleep or something.”

Josh laughed, proud of himself when he kept it from turning into a cough. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve slept in the past couple of days?”

“I’m good,” Lauren said. She had removed the tissue box from the infected corner of the couch and was squished as far into the other corner as she could get.

“Yeah. Whatever.” Isaiah rubbed at his nose again, scrunching it up in a way that would have been adorable if Isaiah had been the kind of person you could use the word “adorable” about without fear of reprisal. “See you at five.”

. . .

Josh probably would have stood up against that counter all night, eyes unfocused, if a coughing fit hadn’t crept up on him and left him doubled over and gasping. Lauren gently pushed him out of the way of the mini fridge, took out a water bottle, and handed it over. Josh struggled to open it for a moment before giving up and handing it back to Lauren, who had to stop to wipe her nose on her sleeve before she could unseal the cap. Josh slid down against the cabinets, arms slung over his knees, head down, still coughing. He looked up when he heard the snap of plastic and felt her hand on his back.

She was holding out the water, eyebrows up. “Is this what I’m in for?”

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, trying to get in sips of water between coughs.

“Nah, you had this planned all along.”

“I really fucking am, Laur.” She’d been joking, he knew she’d been joking, but he needed her to know that he wouldn’t do anything to sabotage the band; hell, no matter how much he wanted to leave sometimes, to be off the road and out of busses and dressing rooms and strangers’ houses, he wouldn’t; he wouldn’t leave them, it’s not like he was that important, not like he couldn’t be replaced, but—

“Hey.” Lauren’s voice was close, and gentle, and a little bit hoarse. “Hey, I know.” She was down next to him on the floor, kneeling beside him, and her hands were on his cheeks, thumbs wiping away tears, and— oh. _Oh._ When he took a breath, it shuddered into him like his body had forgotten how. “I know.” Her nose was starting to run, a thin clear drop threatening to break free, but she didn’t reach up, just sniffed sharply a few times to draw it back. She was quiet for a moment, listening to his shaky breaths as they rattled around in his chest. “Your fever’s up.”

“Yeah.” It came out as a whisper.

“Go to bed. Talk to Kate. Sleep.”

“Yeah.” He started to get up, but gave up on the idea when he was overtaken by a rushing, stuffed-up sneeze — _huh-CHHHngt—_ that he barely had time to press into his shoulder. It was unsatisfying, but it seemed to be alone, so he let Lauren pull him to his feet. The edges of her nose were turning red and she was just a little too pale, the purple streak in her hair stark against her cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Shut up.” She pushed him toward his bunk. “And drink some more of that water.” Huh. Somehow, he was still holding the bottle, although the cap was somewhere back in the kitchen. It occurred to him too late that he should have said, _You, too,_ because she was sick and she had to sing tonight and— he was interrupted by the soft smack of the fridge door and the _snap_ of another lid being removed. Right. Lauren had always been good at taking care of herself.

Josh’s bed was empty. Ian wasn’t in the top bunk either, so Josh figured he must be in the back lounge. He was tempted to look, to see if Ian was half-asleep on Danny’s shoulder while Nathan took the lead not because of superior skill but because Danny, for all of his bravado, didn’t want to wake Ian up. He didn’t want to face anyone, though, so he took off his jeans and crawled under his covers, shivering way down deep in his gut. He didn’t call Kate, didn’t text her, just wished she was there with him, soft and warm, pressed up against him in the dark. He forced himself to sit halfway up and take some more meds, swallow some more of the water, and then he was out.

. . .

When Ian shook him awake two hours later, it took Josh a minute to figure out where he was. The realization sat heavy on his chest. He kept his eyes closed, hoping it would all go away, pulling shallow breaths through his teeth. The meds had kicked in, so he didn’t feel as objectively terrible as before, but the idea of getting out of bed and facing the light and people and the crowd… yeah. He would just stay here in the dark. Indefinitely.

He felt the mattress dip and then fingers on his cheek, checking for fever, or maybe for tears. He blinked his eyes open and found Ian hunched down to fit under the low top bunk, bangs hanging in his eyes.

“Hey, how do you feel?”

Josh groaned and rolled over onto his stomach, muffling his words into his pillow. “Like shit.”

“Yeah.” Ian was fidgeting; Josh could feel it in the uneasy silence.

He turned over again to glare at Ian. “I’m playing tonight. For the record.”

Ian had his thumbnail between his teeth. “Matt could do it.” Which, yeah. His tech could play the whole show — his part or Nathan’s, which made him a better guitarist than Josh. More technically proficient, anyway.

“I’m doing it.” He was trying to look determined, capable, but the effect was sort of ruined by a cough that didn’t stop until Ian had dragged him up by the elbow to sit on the edge of his bed. When he was finally able to get a deep breath in, it set off a set of three sneezes that ripped at his throat. Panting, he accepted the handful of tissues Ian had reached behind him to grab. “I may be a complete fucking mess, but I’m doing it.” He tried the defiant look again, and this time, it took.

Ian shook his head, but he was grinning. “Not a _complete_ fucking mess. Just mostly.”

Josh sorted out the tissues and blew his nose and ugh, that was disgusting. Three more wads of tissue later, he had it under control.

“Okay,” Ian agreed, dubiously offering his hand to pull Josh to his feet. “A complete fucking mess. But a dedicated one, I’ll give you that.” Josh swayed, but stayed up. Ian handed him the jeans he’d dropped on the floor. “Don’t pass out on stage. You’ll break your guitar. And your skull. But mostly your guitar.”

Josh huffed a laugh, pulling on his jeans. “Tell Matt that if I go down, he’s gotta sweep in there, grab my guitar before it hits the ground, and play the rest of the show. Like a ninja. A guitar-playing ninja.” He let his eyes unfocus again, imagining it.

“It’s all good, man.” Ian gave him a little push toward the front lounge, where everyone else was probably ready and waiting. “You’ll be fine.”

. . .

“Fine” was a relative term. He was drugged up to the point where he actually felt pretty okay, in an out-of-body sort of way. He could see Matt out of the corner of his eye, standing sidestage and watching him intently. It was good to know that there was back-up in place so that he couldn’t single-handedly ruin the show, but it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up too, like he was a rabbit that had to keep running or else the fox would pounce. Except this was, like, a rescuing fox? One that was going to carry him away by the scruff of his neck and drop him back in his soft warm nest. He caught Ian looking at him expectantly, fingers already wrapped around the mic, ready to start the next song.

He played, and it wasn’t tight, but the chords were there under his fingers like they’d always been. His hearing was still muffled enough that he couldn’t tell for sure, but he suspected that the sound guys had turned him down a while ago. Like maybe during sound check. Which was, to be honest, for the best. He dropped his pick three times in the first half hour, but the replacements were right where they were supposed to be, in a neat (and slightly entrancing) vertical line on his mic stand, and muscle memory kicked in enough for him to grab a new one without missing more than a measure or so.

He’d almost forgotten that they’d worked out a way for him to get a break mid-show: Ian, Lauren, and Nathan had been playing around with an acoustic version of “Amsterdam” that they hadn’t debuted yet, in part because Ian kept going back and forth on whether the arrangement was too empty with only voices and a single acoustic guitar. The indecision, along with the implication that the parts he’d pulled out from the original arrangement weren’t good enough, was driving Nathan insane, and the tension had finally erupted into a shouting match during sound check the week before. In any case, they’d agreed before the show—mostly over Josh’s head, which was fine by him—that they’d debut it tonight and see what kind of response they got. Even if the crowd didn’t love it, well, it gave him a three and a half minute reprieve, so it was worth the risk.

Ian had stepped up to the mic, pulling his sweat-soaked hair back from his face and then throwing his arms out to the crowd. “Philly!”

They roared like it was a call to arms, and Ian grinned maniacally, loving the control. “Philly, you’ve been fucking awesome tonight.” The crowd roared again, this time with a hint of the desperation that comes from knowing that you’re closer to the end than the beginning.

“And because you’re so awesome,” Ian told them, “we’re gonna try something new.” He paused for a response, and wasn’t disappointed. “You guys know ‘Amsterdam’?” The screams were deafening even through Josh’s in-ears. “Well, we’re gonna strip it down.” He motioned to someone sidestage, then stepped back to clap Nate on the shoulder. “Nathan’s gonna help us out.” A crew member brought out three tall stools, and Luca, who normally took care of Lauren’s bass and Ian’s keyboards, traded out Nathan’s guitar. Apparently Matt was taking his ninja-guitarist mandate to heart, and had handed off all of his other duties for the night. It was Isaiah, though, who pulled Josh off stage, handed him a bottle of water, and pushed him down to sit on an equipment case.

“You good?”

Josh nodded, and he meant it. Whatever meds Maddie had found, they were great. Things were a little spinny, but doable. He kind of wanted to lay down on the giant case, but he was pretty sure that if he did, he’d never get up, and he’d have to hand over his guitar to the fox. He giggled at the back of Matt’s head. He had red hair. It was fitting.

“Maddie, what the hell did you give this kid?”

Maddie poked her head around the curtain. “The good stuff.”

“I can see that.”

He wasn’t as out of it as they thought, really; it was just easier to relax into the meds and the relief of being off stage and the way the colored lights reflected on Isaiah’s dark skin, mottling his face like sun through a stained glass window.

Isaiah sighed and turned back to the stage, and Josh remembered that he was supposed to be drinking the water in his hand. It was cool, but not freezing. It was nice.

Ian nodded at Nathan, who was set up on the middle stool, a little bit behind Ian and Lauren. The crowd murmured during Nathan’s intro, but settled in once Ian started to sing.

 _Remember when we said we’d go to Amsterdam?_  
_Your fingers traced the spinning globe and landed in the North Sea._

He sounded fucking amazing, all exposed like that, and when Lauren took over the verse, the crowd murmured its appreciation.

 _Remember how we watched the fire burn down and the stars come out?_  
_Your breath was warm against my lips, you whispered that you’d love me_

And then together, in harmony:

 _Forever, you promised me forever,_  
_you promised me Amsterdam, you promised me home;_  
_but here we are a world away and there’s no end in sight,_  
_so for one more night, love, we’re sleeping alone._

Josh looked at Isaiah, wide-eyed. “Holy shit.”

“And they were afraid it wouldn’t work.” Isaiah was scanning the crowd, which was spell-bound and as close to silent as a couple thousand people could get. The original arrangement was gorgeous; they had these lush strings on the record that they could almost never get on tour, although the keyboard filled in the sound really nicely. This, though? This was something special.

_(Was it worth it?)_  
_I went to Amsterdam, but I walked the streets alone,_  
_I saw the wonders of the world, but if you’re not here, then…_  
_(Was it worth it?)_  
_I’ve touched a thousand hands but none of them was yours_  
_Will you wait for me, will you wait for me? Remember that you promised me_

_Forever, you promised me forever,_  
_you promised me Amsterdam, you promised me home;_  
_but here we are a world away and there’s no end in sight,_  
_so for one more night, love, we’re sleeping alone._

The way Ian and Lauren were looking at each other… this was gonna be all over the internet tomorrow (hell, before the end of the show), with _#laurian_ tags and words like _“proof!!!”_ that sort of vaguely annoyed Lauren but made Ian laugh out loud. Yeah, they’d dated, briefly, three years ago, and very quickly discovered that they’d rather just fuck around— with each other, although that had faded, but mostly with people they met on the road. Their chemistry, though, was electric. And it showed.

There was a split second of silence when they were done, and then—

“Okay, we’re _definitely_ doing that again tomorrow,” Isaiah shouted, even though Josh could barely hear him five feet away. Isaiah was looking out over the raucous crowd like the whole thing had been his idea in the first place. Josh couldn’t remember; it might have been, but there was no way Josh was going to say that to Ian or Nate.

There wasn’t really time to celebrate; the crew was already trading out instruments and carrying the stools off stage. Josh put out his hand for someone to pull him up but Isaiah and Matt grabbed his arms instead, probably trying to avoid his germs. He decided it was better not to tell them that he’d sneezed messily into his elbow during the second song. And the fourth. And several times after that.

Josh wasn’t actually convinced that having a break had helped; maybe it would have been better to let adrenaline carry him through. The meds were wearing off, and by the end of the show he was still dizzy, no longer loopy, and completely exhausted.

“Philadelphia!” Ian’s voice was starting to go hoarse. “We are The World Above! I’m Ian LeClere, this is the endlessly talented Lauren Haigh, over there is the genius on guitar Nathan Kosel, way in the back we’ve got the one and only Danny Paredes” —they all waved in turn to the screaming crowd, with Danny adding in a drum fill and flexing his muscles— “and here,” Ian finished, his hand on Josh’s shoulder, “is Mr. Joshua Miller, who is sick as a dog but is still on stage for you tonight!”

Ian turned back to the crowd. “We’ve got one more for you tonight; do I even need to introduce it?” He grinned, letting the crowd scream back to him. “Well then, Philadelphia….” There was fire in his eyes. “JUMP!”

  
. . .

Josh stayed on his feet long enough to get to the bus, but it was a close thing. Matt had walked him back, following him up the bus steps and watching him dubiously as he made his way through the curtain to his bunk. Josh was tempted to just crawl into bed without changing, but the sweat was still damp on his stage clothes and he just couldn’t do it. He dug through his duffel until he came up with boxers and a t-shirt that were more or less clean, stripped to his skin right there in the aisle, and pulled them on.

Being able to lay down in the darkness and the quiet and close his eyes and _not move_ was kind of the most amazing thing ever. Isaiah had pushed meds and Gatorade into his hands as he’d come off stage, and maybe it was just wishful thinking, but it felt like they were kicking in. Low-key stuff this time. Just enough to let him sleep, not enough to make his bed buck and roll like whatever Maddie had given him before. He exhaled slowly, willing the ache to leave his joints.

The ache stayed, and was joined by the irritation in his sinuses that had been pretty much constant for the last couple of days. He let his eyelids flutter as he reached for the box of tissues that was still tucked in the corner of his bunk, but didn’t bother even trying to cover now that he was alone. _huh…chHHu! uh. heh…uh-tchHH, ha-CHUU!_ He paused, waiting, but other than the pounding at his temples, things seemed to be pretty calm. A nice, normal set of three. He could deal with that. He blew his nose, and then blew it again, clearing the congestion that had crept in as the last dose of meds wore off. He was bone-tired, but apart from the low rattle in his chest, he could breathe. He’d take it. With one final, experimental sniff, he rolled over and closed his eyes.

. . .  
. . .

“Hey, Josh?”

“Yeah?” He’d been almost asleep, but whatever, it was a sleepover; you weren’t supposed to sleep anyway. And it was February break. Besides, he was 14, which was old enough to be awake at 2:25 a.m., even if his eyes were aching from being kept open for so long.

“Have you ever kissed a girl?”

Josh rolled over to face Ian, peering through the darkness. “Yeah, dude; Shannon McKinley, on the ski club bus. I told you about that.”

“Oh yeah. Right.” He went silent, and Josh was about to ask him if that was really what he woke him back up for when Ian took a deep breath. “Have you ever kissed a guy?”

Josh huffed a laugh, but the way Ian tensed next to him made him think that maybe that was the wrong thing to do, so he kept his voice even when he answered. “No, have you?”

“No.” Ian was incredibly still, and that was weird, because this kid was always in motion, even in his sleep.

“Do…” It felt like taking the first steps in a new level of a video game, where you’re not quite sure if the floor is suddenly going to turn to lava, or maybe just give way entirely into a trap door. “… do you want to?”

There was silence, and then Ian’s voice was small and soft, like they were little kids again. “Yeah.”

Josh was pretty sure he was supposed to say something to that, but he was frozen too, because he didn’t have a script for this, and it was the middle of the night, and—

“I mean, maybe. I think so.” Ian paused again. “Yeah.”

“So you’re… gay?” Huh. That was… huh.  
  
“I mean… I liked going out with Reagan, y’know, kissing her and everything, so no, I don’t think so; I guess… I’m, like.” He stopped for a breath. “Bi?”

Josh turned over to face him, thinking that one through. “Huh.” He was flipping through his mental list of celebrities and upperclassmen who had come out, and couldn’t think of any who matched up with what Ian had just told him. It wasn’t that he was suspicious, exactly, but… “But how do you know? If you haven’t done anything with a guy, ever. Maybe you just think you like boys. Or.” He stopped to think about it. “Maybe you just think you like girls.” This was starting to get confusing.

Ian laughed at him, then, just a breathy exhale. “Did you know you liked girls before you kissed Shannon?”

“I…” A beat. “Yeah. I knew.”

“Okay. So, I know I like boys. And girls. So.” He reached a hand up to push his hair back off his forehead. Josh could see it trembling where he was silhouetted against the dim glow of the streetlight outside.

“Okay.”

They lay there in silence for a few minutes, Ian’s breath coming in quick little pulls. It didn’t quite sound like he was crying, although Josh was kind of afraid to look. It just sounded like he was scared. Really, really scared.

Josh stared at the ceiling, feeling helpless, and then, decision suddenly made, sat up on his elbow and turned toward Ian in the darkness. “Do you want to?”

“What?” Ian’s voice was shaking, like his hands.

Josh’s heartbeat picked up, but he was already in this deep, so— “We could… I mean, I’ve never, I’ve never _thought_ about it, so maybe kissing a guy _could_ be better than kissing Shannon McKinley and I just have no idea, and you just said you’ve never, so, I—”

Ian had pushed himself up to sit against the headboard, and was staring at him in a way that Josh didn’t sort out until _years_ later— suspicious, and hopeful, and more than a little bit sad. “I… you… really?” Josh nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Ian’s lips were just a little bit chapped, dried out from the winter, and they hadn’t actually brushed their teeth before bed, but he was soft, somehow; unsure but still leading, and it felt…

It felt good in the way that all close contact feels good, in the same way that it was nicer to have someone to lean on during a long, late-night bus ride than to be all alone, and it felt special in the way that it always felt special to be the center of Ian’s universe for a moment or two (everyone wanted that; absolutely _everyone_ ), but it didn’t make him feel the way kissing Shannon, or seeing girls at the beach, made him feel. It just… didn’t.

Ian pulled away, his hand immediately going to his lips.

Josh blinked at him. “I’m sorry.” That had been a really dumb idea. Like, _really_ dumb. Like maybe he’d screwed everything up kind of dumb. “Ian, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve…”

“No, I…” Ian ran a hand down his face, then lay down, turned over so his back was to Josh. “It’s fine.”

Josh lay there, still propped up on his elbow, staring at the back of Ian’s head, no idea what he was supposed to do.

“And yeah,” Ian said, still facing the other wall. “I’m sure.”

. . .  
. . .

Okay, everyone in this band _sucked_ at being quiet in the middle of the night. The amount of rustling and not-actually-whispering and running into every item of furniture on the goddamn bus… ridiculous. Josh was annoyed to be awake but relieved to discover that he was surprisingly un-stuffed-up (a few hard blows into a single wad of Kleenex was, for once, enough), and that the bone-deep exhaustion had lifted, leaving just normal middle-of-the-night grogginess in its wake.

_“Ian, for the love of god…”_

He poked his head out of his bunk and pulled aside the curtain to the front lounge without getting out of bed, concerned when he saw Lauren up. She rolled her eyes at him and assured him congestedly that “Ndo, I didd’t go out; I fell asleebp od the couch add woke up whed _this_ idiot stubbled id at 2 a.mb.” She pushed Ian toward the bunk area and informed them that she was going back to sleep on the couch, where it was, “theoretically,” quiet.

Ian brushed off Lauren’s touch, kicked off his shoes, and turned toward his bed. He’d gotten a hand on the ladder up to his bunk when he suddenly turned back toward the aisle and sneezed openly: _uh-CHHIUU!_ He shook his head sharply before acknowledging Josh, who was wiping the spray off of his arm, increasingly annoyed by the whole ordeal.

“Joshhhh.” Ian was grinning at him, aiming for charm, but Josh knew from experience that that look meant he was about to be squished between an incoherent Ian and the wall. There was no point in trying to reason with him, so Josh made his escape, slipping out the other end of the bunk. On his way to the bathroom, he caught a glimpse of Nathan sprawled on the big leather couch in the back lounge, headphones in, like he’d been on Skype with Ellie when he fell asleep. He vaguely wondered where Danny and Isaiah were— probably still out partying, although Isaiah had been making noises about moving over to the crew bus because theirs was contaminated. So maybe he was over there, which was maybe also how Ian had gotten back.

When he got back to his bunk, he was completely unsurprised to find Ian pressed against the inside wall, jeans and sweater still on, and grinning at him in a self-satisfied sort of way.

“Seriously?” Josh glared at him for a second before he climbed back in, managing to kick the covers out from under Ian and down to the end of the bed. Ian rolled over without invitation and threw an arm across Josh’s stomach, wriggling closer until his head was on Josh’s chest. He smelled like weed and cigarettes and beer. Josh gave in with a sigh, settling his arm over Ian’s back. “How was the party?”

Ian nodded against his chest. “Goood.”

“Where’s Danny?”

Ian looked up at him, eyes wide. “He told me that I was a mess and I—” He blinked a few times, breath hitching, but by the time Josh had figured out what was happening, he’d sneezed— _heh-tCHHuu!—_ right into Josh’s shirt. Which maybe hadn’t been completely clean to start with, but _still_.

“Goddamn it,” Josh muttered, reaching for the box of tissues for the millionth time. He did his best to brush off his shirt, pausing to offer the box to Ian, who swiped vaguely at his nose and immediately went back to sniffling instead. Josh rolled his eyes in the dark. Ian could never just take care of himself like a normal human being.

Ian had picked up where he left off, punctuated by ineffective sniffs: “—that I should go home. So Isaiah brought me home.” He looked up at Josh again, like he was confiding a secret. “He doesn’t want to be near you, though. Too many germs.” He nodded in agreement, settling in again against Josh’s chest.

“Yeah, I’m a fucking biohazard.” He had tried not to get everybody else sick, but they lived on a goddamn bus, which, contrary to what Ian had said, _wasn’t_ home, and besides, they were never alone; whoever he’d gotten this from had probably given it to half a dozen other people at the same time.

Ian didn’t argue, just pulled him closer and let his free hand drift down Josh’s side, then up, a slow, repeated drag of knuckles on ribs. It was comfort, and possessiveness, and he didn’t know what else, but it was good; it was one of those moments at the center of Ian’s universe that everyone lived for. Everyone in the whole damn world, it felt like now.

“How come, I dunno, _Danny_ couldn’t’ve been the first one to get sick?” He sounded more bitter than he’d planned. “Then everyone could blame it on him.”

“Hmm.” Ian hummed seriously, considering the question. “Well, you drink too much.” Josh stiffened at the accusation, but Ian just kept lazily tapping out each item on the list with a finger against Josh’s side. “You don’t sleep, food on tour is crap…” He looked at Josh, who was staring at the ceiling, mouth tight.

“Relax.” Ian unspooled the word, slow and slurred, and rubbed his nose back and forth on Josh’s shirt like there wasn’t an unused ball of tissues two inches from his hand. “This isn’t an intervention. We’re all a little fucked up.” He shifted, burrowing into Josh’s side. “This isn’t normal, you know, what we do.”

Josh swallowed thickly. The meds that had dried out his sinuses had left his mouth all weird and cotton-bally. He twisted his arm around to grab his water bottle from behind Ian, where it was squished in next to the tissue box in the corner of his bunk, and managed to take a drink without spilling any water on Ian’s head. In spite of the movement, Ian’s breathing had steadied and slowed, interrupted by an occasional sniff.

In the quiet, the dark, curtained bunk felt like a confessional. Ian’s fingers had stopped moving, and had settled, curled slackly, at Josh’s side. “I’d give it up,” he whispered, and when he said it out loud, it felt true. “Everything we’ve worked for— I’d walk away, if it meant...” He traced a finger across a crack in the low ceiling of the bunk. If it meant what? Home? Kate? Hearing his niece’s first word? Anonymity, freedom, real houses, unlocked doors…

His chest tightened, and he bit back a cough. He could feel the phlegm way down deep in his lungs. He should sit up and let himself cough it out, doubled over on the edge of the bed with Ian’s hand on his back. He should, but it was easier to stay put. He focused on taking shallow breaths, refusing to let them catch in his chest, and surveyed the dark space around him. It wasn’t a confessional, and it wasn’t a coffin; it was exactly where they’d always wanted to be.

Ian sighed and settled beside him, taking the weight off his chest. It was late. Really late. All of that could wait for morning. They’d sleep in, and they’d play a kick-ass show, and then they’d have a day off. And then it was only a few days to Boston, and a hotel night ( _two_ hotel nights), and Kate. Everything always seemed worse at night. He just had to wait for the sun.

. . .  
. . .

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Amsterdam](https://youtu.be/JLNZK4Wpogk), in case you'd like to listen.


	3. Chapter 3

. . .  
. . .

Josh’s apartment in Michigan was on the third floor of a huge old house. At some point in the renovation process, a previous landlord had put windows as big as doors —including one that actually _was_ a door— into the south-facing wall and added a long, narrow balcony just outside. Up that high, there was only sky and treetops; on a clear day, he could see the lake. None of the other places he’d looked at could even compare, but those windows were hell on the heating bill. Every time they toured in the winter, he had to seal them up with shrink-wrap plastic, pull the heavy drapes, turn the thermostat down as low as he dared, and hope that the rising heat from the first two floors would help keep it from breaking the bank. Or the pipes.

When they finally got home from last summer’s tour, he’d spent the first four nights on a futon in the middle of the living room floor, curtains thrown open to let in the light. They’d spent a solid two months on the bus, and he’d needed wide-open space. He needed it now— needed to be back there, surrounded by empty space with the blinding sun pouring in through the open windows and the glint of the lake in the distance. Instead, he coughed his way into consciousness in the suffocating darkness of a tour bus bunk, his chest aching from more than just the spasms in his lungs. 

He couldn’t figure out why the bunk seemed even smaller than normal until urgent fingers started poking at his back: _let me out let me out let me out._ Josh swung his legs off the side of the bed so that Ian could slide past him and make his way toward the back of the bus, quickly but unsteadily, hands on the upper bunks for balance. They were in motion again, driving during the day for once since Scranton was only a couple of hours away.

Josh was still coughing, deep and productive. It was— oh, shit. He shuddered, teeth clenched, panting through the urge to gag as he grabbed for a handful of tissues and spat. It was better, after, but the process was just so fucking _gross_. After a minute, once he could get a good breath, he sat back and buried his face in his hands to scrub at his watering eyes.

By then, Ian was stumbling back down the aisle. “You okay?” His voice was wrecked.

Josh cleared his throat carefully and took one more swipe at his eyes. “Yeah. You?”

Ian groaned dramatically. “My head is gonna fucking _explode_.” He had screwed up his eyes when he said it, but his eyebrows stayed scrunched together as he froze, right hand hovering in front of his face, and then— _hng-TCHxxt! “Owww.”_

“Well, that’s what you get.” Josh was kind of amused at how personally offended Ian was by the idea that he might not be immune to illness or alcohol or partying every night of the tour.

“You’re one to talk,” Ian told him darkly, and Josh bit back an unexpected surge of shame. He was saved by Danny’s voice, muffled from inside his bunk:

“Yes. Fine. Your hangover is a punishment from God. Now shut. The fuck. Up.”

Josh wiped his nose on the back of his hand and fumbled for his phone on the shelf over his bed. 7:00. Way too early, but he couldn’t bring himself to crawl back into bed. He needed to see the sun.

The front lounge was a haze of sleepy darkness. The shades on all the windows were drawn, but there was just enough light filtering through to see Lauren curled on the couch under a mound of blankets, crumpled tissues held loosely in her hand. He felt a pang of… guilt, maybe, but not as strong; just this urge to brush back her hair and whisper _sorry_ , even if she wouldn’t hear.

Instead, he made his way to the front of the bus and carefully slid past the curtain that separated the front lounge from the driver’s area and the steps. They hardly ever bothered to close it, but Jim, their bus driver, was good about pulling it shut first thing in the morning to give them some privacy and to keep them from being blinded by the light. Josh remembered just in time to close his eyes as he came through, letting the sudden brightness seep in through his eyelids rather than set off a helpless sneeze. Or three.

The highway looked like every other road they’d seen for weeks, but the morning sun was glorious, and there was a country station on, low and comforting. He just stood there for a minute, drinking it in, until Jim nodded in his direction. “Hey,” he managed, grateful when his voice didn’t give out. “How are things?”

“Good, good.” Jim studied his mirrors, then merged back into the right lane. “Not much happenin’.”

Josh nodded. Uneventful was good. “You want some coffee?”

Jim glanced at his empty mug. “If you’re makin’ it.”

Yeah. He definitely was. He felt like he’d been asleep for days— he needed a fresh start. Coffee and sunlight. He took the mug Jim held out for him and headed toward the kitchenette.

. . .

The plan was to spend the next half-hour leaning up against the waist-high barrier that separated the steps from the lounge, in front of the curtain but behind the do-not-cross-while-bus-is-in-motion line, watching the sun coming up on their right and the cars going by on their left, sipping his coffee in companionable silence with Jim while songs he didn’t know played softly in the background.

Reality intervened.

He paced the bus while the coffee brewed. Lauren was up front, ensconced in mismatched comforters; Ian was sprawled face down on Josh’s bed, drooling on his pillow, the fucker. Danny’s curtain was tightly drawn, and Nathan was still in the back, although at some point he’d taken out his headphones and found the pillow and blanket that were always floating around back there somewhere. It had happened organically, but it seemed like everyone was stretching, searching, trying to find their own space. Everyone except Ian. Even when everyone else was pushing away, he would press in close, whether you wanted him to or not. It drove Nate up the fucking wall.

The second time though the front curtain, coffee mugs in hand, Josh forgot to close his eyes. The light was sudden and blinding, and he had just enough time to think _oh, shit_ before he was overtaken by a set of forceful sneezes, pressed into his shoulder _—heh-tCHt, heh-tCHngt, heh-tCHMMPH!—_ that undid his careful balancing act and sent coffee splashing to the floor. Jim looked him up and down dubiously, but took his mug without comment. Josh couldn’t decide whether that was more or less embarrassing than the alternative, but figured that the floor —and the driver— had undoubtedly seen worse.

In spite of the rough start, he did get a few minutes of blissful coffee-and-sunlight, breathing in the fragrant steam and watching the sun flicker past through the winter-bare trees. The problem was that as the coffee loosened his congestion, his nose was starting to run. Pretty soon he was sniffling incessantly, but it was clearly a losing battle. He tried to find some sort of logical parting words for Jim, failed, and ducked back through the curtain anyway. He was able to set his coffee cup on the table and clamp his fingers over his dripping nose before things became truly disastrous, but that still left him searching desperately for somewhere private to go deal with the mess. He settled on the bathroom, which was tiny and not completely clean, but at least it had an actual door that shut. And locked.

He leaned back against the door, looking for the box of tissues that used to be _right there_ … until he’d brought them to the front lounge while he was camped out on the couch. Well, fuck. He sniffed mightily as he unclenched the hand that was holding back his nose, tore off a length of paper towel as fast as he could, and pressed it back to his face just in time for the inevitable release. _heh…CHHHMPT! eh… CHHNGT! ah… hah…._ His eyelids fluttered, breath hitching unbearably, as he blindly refolded the paper towel, searching for a relatively dry patch. _eh… hehhh…heh-tCHNXXT!!_ He wiped his nose as well as he could with the abused paper towel, dropped it in the trash, grabbed another, and blew hard. He had to repeat the process twice more before the congestion was finally cleared.

When it was over, he washed his hands and his face in the tiny sink, scrubbing first at his nose, then his eyes, and finally running his wet hands through his hair, head tipped forward, so that the water darkened and straightened the loose brown waves. His hair was getting long, falling in his eyes. Everyone kept telling him it looked good grown out. Maybe he’d wait to get it cut.

He stood like that for a minute, taking slow deep breaths, trying to ignore the tingle that had started up in his sinuses again. He just wanted to go back out to the front of the bus, drink some more coffee, maybe read for a while. He’d felt awful enough for the past couple of days that he hadn’t made any progress in his book, although really, it had been slow going even before that. Nate kept assuring him it was worth pushing through: “ _The Gunslinger_ isn’t my favorite, but it’s short compared to the other books, and I promise it’s important in the end. And then you get to _The Drawing of the Three,_ and things really start picking up, and then you’re good to go from there.” He paused. “Well, until things get weird in book six, but you have a ways to go before then.”

Before he went back out to where everyone else was sleeping, though, he really needed to get his nose under control. He scrunched and wriggled, trying to quell the itch, but it only flared again. _hih…hih…_  He raised another handful of makeshift tissues to his twitching nose… _hihhh…_ and… nothing. He groaned in frustration, then switched to rubbing hard circles with the flat of his hand. Okay, if he pressed in just… this… way… then… deep breath… _ehhh-CHHHHT!_ Finally. _heh… heh-CHU! ahhh-CHHTT!_ He got a breath in, but the itch was still there. He scrubbed as his nose again, eyes welling, trying to find the right spot, until… _tCHHHH! ah-CHHUU! ih… ih… eh-TCHHUU!_ Okay. No, wait, still not done— _heh-chhht! tchh! tchh! ch! ch!_ —he gasped for breath— _ehhhh… ahhh… TCHHHUU!_

Josh stumbled back from the sink, lightheaded and panting. Whoa. Intense. He took an experimental sniff. Now that it was over, he actually felt pretty okay. He splashed a little more water on his face, turning to go, and then realized that there was no way everyone had slept through that fit. Ergh. Mentally steeling himself, he stepped out into the hallway as quietly as he could. When he glanced into the back lounge, Nathan had one eye half-open, eyebrow up. Josh waved vaguely in his direction: _I’m good._ Danny was still hiding behind his curtain, which was for the best, but Ian stuck a lazy hand out of the bunk to stop Josh from going by.

“Damn. You okay?”

Josh bent down to Ian’s level. “Yeah, better now. You?”

Ian nodded, but even as he did, his mouth opened slightly and he started to blink rapidly, eyes rolling toward the ceiling. _heh…hih…_ —he rolled away from Josh, toward the back wall of the bunk— _ihSHU! uh… tSHU!_

Josh sighed. “Sorry for getting you sick.”

Ian was massaging his temples with one hand, but waved the other in more or less in Josh’s direction. It was a dismissal, not a denial. “I’m fine.”

“It gets worse,” Josh told him apologetically.

Ian shrugged, grinning tiredly. “For you, maybe. My immune system’s a fucking beast.”

“Uh-huh.” His skepticism was lost on Ian, who was already falling back asleep, so Josh let it go. He grabbed his Kindle from the shelf, pulled the bunk’s curtain shut behind him, and headed back toward coffee and sunlight again.

. . . 

Usually, the energy of the crowd was enough to get them through even the toughest show. Last winter, when Danny’s grandmother had been in the hospital in Arizona, he’d gotten the _“this is it”_ call in Seattle, at lunch between an interview and a signing. They’d already arranged for a guy they knew to cover for Danny when the time came, but Tyler was in L.A. _If_ he left right now, and _if_ the flights worked out, he could probably get to the venue before they had to be on, but with no rehearsal, not even sound check, that was pretty much a no-go. When Josh looked around the table, he could see everyone else doing the math for themselves. There was just no way around it. They watched through the cafe’s open door as Danny paced the sidewalk, phone to his ear, talking to his mom in a fluid tangle of Spanish and English while his free hand scrubbed furiously through his hair. Ten minutes later, when he came back to the table, his fingers were trembling but his jaw was set. “There’s a flight out of Sea-Tac at midnight.” Josh had glanced at Nate, unsure whether they were supposed to fight him on that, insist that he go now, show be damned. And, fuck, was it actually possible to play a full set and still make a midnight flight? He wasn’t completely sure where the venue was in relation to the airport, but they certainly weren’t next door. In spite of all that, Isaiah just nodded at Danny. “Yeah, man. We’ll get you there.”

That night, Danny had broken a full half-dozen drumsticks, and the crowd had just sort of _known_. They had snarled back at him, screaming along with Ian, throwing themselves at the barrier and each other. There was a simmering fury that filled the room even during the acoustic break. It was the kind of show they’d played for years, wild and skirting disaster, the kind they’d replaced with something more predictable as the stakes got higher for all of them. As soon as they’d finished the encore, Danny had thrown his sticks to the raucous crowd and stalked off stage without looking back, followed by Isaiah, who motioned to the techs at large and then to the drum kit: _Deal with it; we’re already out the door._

Eighteen hours later, Isaiah had gotten a text: _she’s gone._ And then: _i got to say goodbye._

So yeah, usually the crowd was enough. Tonight, though, there just seemed to be too many things working against them at once. Nathan was on edge, trying to keep his distance, even on stage, from anyone who might be contagious. Danny had hardly said a word all day. Josh was feeling a lot better than he had been, but he was still medicated, sort of heavy. Weighted. Lauren was on something stronger, pushing through, head down and face hidden behind her hair. When she got on the mic to apologize for not being able to sing, her voice was thick and her consonants mangled. The crowd gave her a disappointed, sympathetic _awww_ and then burst into applause and cheers when she announced that Evan, the singer for the openers, was coming back to cover some of her parts, but the brief excitement didn’t do anything for the general vibe of the night. Not that anything fell apart; it was just sort of… _less_ than normal. A couple of kids asked for the new version of “Amsterdam,” shouting it into the uncharacteristic dead-air static between songs, but otherwise, the crowd was subdued, rallying during Ian’s overenthusiastic efforts to hype them up but inevitably falling back into restlessness. Josh was tempted to pull out his phone mid-show just to see what people were saying (was it schadenfreude if you were reading about yourself?), but resisted. As they got into the second half of the set, Josh looked over to see Nathan up on the drum riser, facing Danny, his head bobbing in a barely-veiled form of deeply frustrated conducting. They were losing steam, which was weird. Danny was always rock solid; it was part of why they’d brought him on board in the first place. The last time Josh could remember the tempo getting really out of whack during an actual performance was that night in Seattle, but that had been a frenetic pushing ahead that had, in the moment, worked.

Ian kept glancing back, too, ostensibly to check in with the rest of the band, but more than a few of those turns were actually quick sneezes, squelched into oblivion between forefinger, thumb, and a tightly clenched fist. Ian was weird about sneezing: unless he was really out of it— wasted or dead tired or how-are-you-out-of-bed sick— he wouldn’t let himself just _sneeze_ in public, a rule that apparently extended to the tour bus unless Josh or maybe Lauren were the only ones around. The thing was, Ian’s stifled sneezes weren’t exactly subtle, so Josh had never been able to figure out why he bothered. Clearly he was capable of making them quick and quiet and reasonably well-hidden so that they didn’t detract from the show, but as soon as they were offstage, even during signings and meet-and-greets and interviews, it was back to the gasping, barely-contained explosions _(hih… hih… NGXXT-CHuuuu!)_ that left him panting and flushed and, usually, half-grinning, basking in the inevitable wave of blessings. So yeah. Ian was weird. Nothing new.

They made it, stuttering through the rest of the set and then finally pulling it together for a solid ending and even a short encore. (Josh was sort of surprised that anyone _wanted_ an encore after that, but hey, ask and ye shall receive. Or something.) Backstage, Josh let himself drop onto the dressing room couch. Lauren did the same, turning away to cough, before moving in close, head on his shoulder, muttering something that sounded like “You owe me.” He leaned his head onto hers in silent agreement. She was warm. Probably fever-warm. He sighed, closed his eyes, and was halfway to sleep even before Ian came in and informed them all that he was going out to sign.

Isaiah poked him awake a few minutes later, gently but not all that patiently, so that everyone still in the dressing room could migrate toward the bus. Josh wasn’t thrilled about having to move, but he and Lauren resettled on the couch in the front lounge with Lauren curled up with his leg for a pillow. She had to sit back up again a minute later to blow her nose, grab some more tissues, and burrow under the blankets from the end of the couch. They were going to have to disinfect those blankets at some point. Disinfect the whole damn bus.

Danny pushed past them, jaw tight, on his way to the back lounge. Danny’s method for dealing with impending illness was to hole up like a bear getting ready for winter and to sleep for 19 hours straight, somehow skipping the actual being-sick thing entirely. Josh sort of envied that talent; it would’ve saved him a lot of misery over the past couple of days. Isaiah stopped him before he could push through the curtain: “Don’t hibernate yet, Paredes. I got us some real beds for tonight.”

Josh blinked at him in shock. Real beds. Hotel night. When there were two hotel nights coming up in just a couple of days. He’d sort of thought that once they were making a living at this, once they didn’t have to take jobs waiting tables or painting houses in between tours, every night would be a hotel night, but no. Turns out touring just gets more expensive the bigger you get, and once they’d moved beyond the tiny venues they could set up themselves, there were suddenly more than twice as many people to factor into the planning and the finances, and, as Isaiah had explained over and over when they were hashing out the details of their first headlining tour, it made a lot more sense to pack the tour dates together, sleep on the bus while they drove through the night, and avoid keeping the crew on the road (and the payroll) for months and months at a time. It made sense. It did. Didn’t make the relentless grind of press—sound-check—show—sign—drink—sleep-it-off—do-it-again any easier.

But real beds. “Fuck yeah,” he muttered, waving in Isaiah’s direction in a way he hoped he’d recognize as gratitude. Lauren hummed in agreement and curled up tighter against his leg.

“You know this means we’re gonna have to move again,” he told her.

She yawned and swiped her hand at her nose. “Not ’til Ian gets back.”

It took the better part of an hour, and would’ve been longer if Isaiah hadn’t texted Ian to make him come back, but eventually Ian came in, grinning and flushed. He paused at the top of the stairs and drew in a hitching breath before stifling a _hngtCHHXT! uh. hih…CHNGXXT!_ into his palm. He contemplated his hand, wrinkled his nose, and wiped it on his jeans. Great.

“Get your shit together, LeClere, we’re doing a hotel tonight.” Isaiah seemed to have fought off the germs surrounding him pretty well, never getting past the sniffling, nose-wiping, throat-clearing stage, but he was even more terse than usual, like maybe there was a perpetual headache going along with it.

Ian sniffed, gave Josh an _is he for real?_ look, and Isaiah confirmed: “You guys are dropping like flies, and it’s only a matter of time before the crew goes down too. It’s all press tomorrow, Maddie’s already calling to postpone; we’ll swing back through New Jersey on our way down south. Just… take a day before things get really insane.”

Lauren was poking at Josh’s legs. “Ogkay. Tibe to pback.”

Josh groaned, but pushed himself up. It was harder than he’d expected to find a full clean set of clothes, but at least all of his shower stuff and toothbrush and everything was already pretty well contained. He shoved them all in a backpack, checked his pockets for his phone and wallet, and grabbed his jacket just as they were pulling into the hotel parking lot, body already aching in anticipation of a real bed.

. . .

Usually, the question of who was rooming with whom wasn’t too complicated. Josh and Ian almost always ended up together; Danny went with either Isaiah or Nathan, and whoever wasn’t with him went with Matt or Luca or somebody else from the crew. Lauren and Raina, their light tech and one of the few other women on tour, pretty much stuck together because "it’s nice to occasionally _not_ be surrounded by guys.” Fair enough. Tonight, though, the goal was infection containment. Nate had begged his way into Isaiah’s room on the grounds that Danny was contagious even in his sleep, and Lauren had showed up at Josh and Ian’s door just after they arrived, saying she didn’t want to get Raina sick. At this point, it was probably a lost cause for everyone involved, but it was a nice gesture from Lauren all the same. Ian, already sprawled out on the bed farthest from the door, had wordlessly opened his arms to her, and Josh had watched them curl up together with selfish relief. He’d almost forgotten what a full-sized bed felt like, and if he was being honest, he really didn’t want to share.

He’d grabbed some drinks and bags of chips— remnants from the green rooms at the last couple of shows— off the counter of the bus kitchenette on their way out of the door, and once they were settled, he dug through his backpack to pull them out. Now that they were off the bus and not in a venue, he could almost pretend he was home, or at least on vacation. The kind where you got to actually see the place you were traveling to.

“Hey, do you guys mind if….” He gestured at the tv. Ian gave him an assenting wave, and Lauren shrugged, mostly asleep, curled up on her side on top of the covers. Josh turned the volume way down and flipped through the channels until he found an old hockey game on one of the many iterations of ESPN. He offered a beer and Doritos to Ian, and then took them himself when Ian shook his head. The game was good white noise. It drowned out the near-constant sniffling from the other bed, punctuated by an occasional _hi-tchiew!_ from Lauren.

He settled back against the headboard, downing nearly all of his beer before he even bothered to open the chips, and glanced at the clock on the nightstand between the beds. It was late, but Chicago was an hour behind, so at least time zones were good for something. He pulled another beer out of his backpack, found his phone, and tapped on Kate’s name.

_Surprise hotel night!!_

A minute later, his phone buzzed in reply.

_> how’d you pull THAT one off?_

_By infecting everyone._

He glanced over at Ian and Lauren, who were still curled in on each other. They looked like they’d be a lot warmer under the covers, but he wasn’t sure if suggesting it would do any good.

 _> well that’s one way to do it _  
_> must be pretty bad if Isaiah caved._

 _His idea actually_  
_Trying to stop the plague before it takes out the entire tour._

 _> wow _  
_> good thing I’m around 3rd graders all day _  
_> pretty sure I’m immune to everything now._

Josh hadn’t gotten as far as worrying about whether Kate would end up going back to school sick. Ergh. Hopefully everyone in their immediate vicinity would be better by the weekend; it was only Tuesday. Well. Wednesday, now. Fuck.

_sorry_

_> dude, stop apologizing _  
_> not your fault you got sick_

_feels like it_

_> doesn’t make it true._

Oh. That was a conversation they’d had more than once, usually during phone calls where Josh was convinced that no one wanted him around. When he got like that, Kate would alternate between sympathizing and rationalizing and just straight-up telling him to snap out of it. Josh appreciated her restraint with that last one. He had always marveled at the way things just didn’t seem to faze her. She worried about her students (“All the time, I can’t even tell you”), and she worried about her school, a brand-new magnet program with good ideas but a less-than-smooth launch, but she didn’t worry about what people thought of her. “You’ve gotta let it go,” she’d told him the last time he was home. She was curled up beside him on the couch in her apartment in Chicago and playing with his hair, twisting strands between her fingers and tucking them behind his ear. “If I took every parent’s and administrator’s criticisms as a judgment on my value as a human being, I’d’ve quit during my first month. You don’t ignore what they have to say, you just filter it. Take the good ideas, leave the rest.”

Easy to say, hard to do. He was working on it, though. Slowly.

_Ok. Not my fault, not theirs._

_> blame the germs_

That, he could do. He let out a breath and took another swig of beer.

_> so what are you doing with this unexpected hotel night?_

_Not much_  
_Just enjoying an actual bed._

_> you’ll enjoy it more come friday ;-)_

He let himself smile at that, glad that Kate was okay, for now, with whatever arrangement they had going— friends with benefits, or something, but _good_ friends, and exclusive benefits, which she and Ian had both pointed out to him on more than one occasion was kind of the definition of dating, but he couldn’t do it, because he’d screw it up, not by cheating or anything, he just wasn’t around enough; it wasn’t fair to her, it just…

That line of thought was cut off by a new, truly filthy text from Kate. He squirmed and grinned, trying to come up with a good reply, but he was startled out of his concentration by a forceful _heh…NGTCHuuu!_ from the other bed.

When he glanced over, Ian was gearing up for a second: _heh-CHHXXT!_ Ian had this weird ability to stifle without using his hands, which was an interesting talent, if kind of hazardous in terms of mess. In the pause that followed, Lauren murmured a blessing and Josh tossed over the tissue box that was on his side of the nightstand. Ian pushed himself up and got a hand on the box before he sneezed again, toward his lap: _kiSHNGT!_

Lauren blessed him again, more emphatically this time, as Ian pulled out a couple of tissues and blew his nose, hard but unproductively. There was another moment of silence, and then a quick breath before he clamped a fist firmly over his nose: _ngt! uh. huh-NGT!_

Lauren glanced over Ian’s head at Josh, giving him a look that he was pretty sure meant, _he’ll figure out one of these days that he’s just making it worse for himself,_ then slipped out of bed to grab her toiletries bag. As soon as she’d closed the bathroom door, Ian scrambled for another handful of tissues.

 _heh… heh…ih-TCHUUU!_ It was loud, and messy, and, along with a few quick coughs, finally ended the fit. Josh looked away long enough to let Ian clean himself up.

“Shit, dude. Bless you.”

“Thagks.”

Josh sniffed and cleared his throat, as much in response to the congestion in Ian’s voice as to the remnants of his own cold. “Good thing we’ve got tomorrow off, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

The fit seemed to have done Ian in; by the time Lauren came back, he was curled up on his side, staring, glazed and unfocused, at the space between the beds. She gave his back a quick rub, then rolled over with a sigh that gradually turned to quiet snore, which in turn blended with the sound of the crowd on tv cheering their team’s second goal. He’d found a fitting response for Kate and was wishing _very_ much that he had the room to himself, but what could you do. Just a few more days. He turned the tv down even lower and texted with Kate until she decided that she really needed to go to bed so that she could be up for her flight in the morning. As the clock ran out on the third period of the game, he set another half-finished bottle of beer on the nightstand next to the empties and let the buzz pull him down. He’d been nothing but tense for the last few days, skin tight and head pounding. It was good to have something to take the edge off. To be able to breathe. A night in a real bed, with clean sheets and enough room to move, certainly didn’t hurt either. He still wasn’t sure if he could make it through another tour, but finishing this one didn’t seem unbearable any more.

. . .

When Josh opened his eyes the next morning, Lauren was lounging in bed, playing with her phone. Ian was showered and half-dressed, bouncing from phone to window to duffel bag with his toothbrush —and some foamy toothpaste— hanging out of his mouth. It was probably the most endearing version of Ian, as far as Josh was concerned: utterly unable to focus and not trying to fight it for anyone else’s sake.

“Josss. Co’ i’ tow’ wi’mmih.”

Josh sat up. “What?”

Ian disappeared into the bathroom, spit out his toothpaste, and reappeared.

“Come into town with me.”

Josh groaned. “Dude, Maddie got us extended checkout, we have _hours_ to _not do anything_.”

Lauren pointed at him in agreement— _what_ he _said_ — without looking up from her phone.

“Yeah, and if you do that, you’re going to be miserable. _Keep_ being miserable,” Ian amended. He coughed a few times before going on. “We’ve gotta get you outside.”

Josh didn’t even bother asking Ian if he was sure that _he_ should be outside; that was a fight he was never going to win. He flopped back dramatically onto his bed but, after a moment of internal debate, offered up his hands for Ian to grab. Ian grinned, victorious, and pulled him to his feet.

“I’ll be right here until 5 minutes before checkout.” Lauren’s voice was still off, like she couldn’t clear her throat no matter how many times she tried, but she seemed well-rested, so that was good, at least. She rubbed at her chapped nose. “Don’t you dare drag me out of bed before then.”

Ian grinned at her cheekily and flitted over to the bed to pat her on top of her head. “Alright, sleeping beauty. We’re off.”

Josh stopped in the doorway of the bathroom. “Okay, first of all, I thought the whole point is that you’re not gonna leave without me. Second: I’m pretty sure they won’t let you in anywhere without shoes. Or a shirt.”

. . .

Ian was right, of course. Being outside, surrounded by people who didn’t know or care who they were, in the slowly-warming spring air and the sunshine? He felt better than he had in weeks.

Ian had given directions to the taxi driver without bothering to tell Josh where they were going, and had laughed him off when Josh had asked. “Just wait and see.”

The answer turned out to be a street filled with galleries, boutiques, and antique shops. He let Ian drag him from store to store, laughing at ridiculous knickknacks and admiring intricately carved wooden furniture from the 1800s. It was good. Really good. It was so rare on tour for him to feel like a normal person who did more than play video games and guitar.

Ian must have seen his expression, because he linked his arm through Josh’s. “See? It doesn’t have to be all tour bus, all the time.”

If only.

“I’m serious!” Ian sniffed, and sniffed again. He pulled his arm out of Josh’s to wipe his nose on his sleeve. “Dude, we’re beyond the take-what-you-can-get stage. We can plan for this shit. We’re headlining now; we can set the terms.”

“I mean, I guess, but Isaiah said—”

Ian had his wrist pressed under his nose, seemingly unconcerned by its relentless dripping. “What, that it’s more expensive? So what? You think we want money more than we want everyone to be good with what we’re doing?” He elbowed Josh’s arm. “C’mon, dude. You know us better than that.”

Yeah. He did. When he put it like that, Josh felt kind of dumb for not speaking up during the initial planning stage. In the moment, though, everyone had been so gung-ho about pushing through that he hadn’t wanted to rock the boat.

Ian sniffed hard again against his wrist, wet and futile. “God _damn_.”

“Oh, fuck, hang on…” Josh rummaged around in his jacket pocket and came up with a couple of crumpled, but clean, tissues. “Sorry, man, forgot I had these.”

Ian nodded his thanks and blew his nose, then jogged over to a trash can to throw the mostly-disintegrated tissues away. When he jogged back, he was still sniffling, but it wasn’t messy or desperate anymore.

“Ooh! Those photos are gorgeous.” Ian had already set off for the gallery across the street and half a block down, drawn by the giant landscapes in its display window. “Makes me want to go hiking. Or, like, mountain climbing. Anything to get that kind of view.”

Josh grinned, following him to the corner to wait for the light. They used to go wandering back in high school and the beginning to college, spending weekends hiking sand dunes or out in kayaks on Lake Michigan. They’d always talked about going somewhere big, maybe Yosemite, but the dream had been put on hold for years, while they were touring furiously first to get a foothold in the industry and then, a few years later, to keep it. “This summer. We’ll make it happen.”

Ian’s face lit up. “Really?”

“Yeah, bud.” The light had changed without Ian noticing, so Josh gave him a little push forward with his hand on his back. “We get to decide now, right? So, I’m deciding. Let’s do it.”

Ian practically skipped across the street.

. . .  
. . .

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

. . .  
. . .  


Ian’s bouncing, disjointed energy held out until lunch. When he’d pulled open the diner’s chrome-and-neon door for Josh and followed him in, he’d been plotting a trip to Mt. Rainier that was way above their current climbing abilities (or, as Josh kept reminding him, their lack thereof); by the time their drinks arrived, Ian was slumped over the table with his head on his arms. Every time Josh thought he’d actually fallen asleep, he was proved wrong by a muffled _heh-kTCHMP_ and a blind grab for napkins from the ’50s-style tabletop dispenser. Ian did sit up long enough to thank the waitress when she brought their food, but within a few minutes he had his head propped on his hand, staring through his plate like maybe he could absorb his turkey sandwich via osmosis. Josh spent fifteen minutes savoring his hamburger —he felt kind of guilty about it, given Ian’s sudden, dramatic fade, but in his defense, he could taste again after three days of no appetite and no sense of smell, and his hamburger was really goddamn good— before taking pity on Ian, calling the cab company to take them back to the hotel, and signaling the waitress for their check.

. . .  


By 1:30, they were on the road to Western Mass. Josh had turned down Lauren and Nathan’s offer of epic Mario Kart-ing, preferring to pull open all the shades in the front lounge and settle onto the couch with his Kindle. Danny, who had come down to the hotel lobby flushed and still half-asleep, had crawled into his bunk to continue his hibernation, and Isaiah was over on the crew bus, probably on the phone with the press folks they were blowing off today, leaving their bus strangely quiet except for an occasional victorious shout from the back. It would’ve been ideal for reading, but Josh was mostly watching northeastern Pennsylvania go by, soaking in the light. Ian had sunk down onto the couch beside Josh five minutes after they left, pale and a little shaky, and was currently staring, unfocused, at some invisible spot in the middle of the room.

“Hey.” Josh tried to keep his voice gentle, but Ian still started at the sound. “You okay?”

“I—” Ian’s breath caught, and he coughed a few times, trying to clear his throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh.” Josh studied him, and was met with a quick, hard shiver. “Go to bed, dude. We literally have nothing to do and nowhere to be. Just sleep it off.”

The noise Ian made was something like a protest, but Josh suspected that it had more to do with the idea of moving than any objection to actually being asleep. Well, that was easy enough to solve.

“Here, just… lie down.” Josh pulled a soft blue fleece out of the nest of blankets and crumpled it into a pillow at his side. If it were anyone else, he would’ve given up the couch and gone to sit at the table across the aisle, but he knew from long experience that Ian would trail him like a puppy even to the notoriously uncomfortable bench, so it was better to just stay put.

“I’m fine,” Ian repeated. It was barely a whisper.

“Fine, my ass.” Josh tugged at the shoulder of Ian’s shirt, pulling him down to the makeshift pillow and meeting with no resistance at all. “Here.” He shook out the rest of the blankets —it turned out to be two, intertwined— and draped them over Ian, who burrowed down into the warmth, then stopped, eyes vague and breath hitching, a blanket-mittened hand hovering in front of his face. Josh reached for the tissue box on the side table, their third or fourth in as many days, but wasn’t quite fast enough to beat Ian’s congested, messy _hig-CHGGT._ Ew. He held out the box, and Ian pulled out a handful of tissues just in time to press them against his face: _heh-CHNGT. eh… heh…hih-TCHNGGT._ He wiped at his nose and then his hands, breathing heavily, waiting to see if the fit was over. After a few seconds of silence, he groaned, sniffed thickly, and dropped the tissues into the small trash can that had taken up residence next to the couch. When he grabbed another handful and blew his nose, hard, it didn’t seem to do much for the congestion, just left him even more exhausted than before. At first, Josh had assumed that Ian was intentionally stifling his sneezes like always, but now he was pretty sure Ian was so stuffed-up that he didn’t actually have a choice. Ian turned over onto his stomach, buried his face in the blanket, and moaned.

“Headache?” Josh asked, sympathetic. Ian nodded into the fleece. “Do you want to take something? I think Maddie got some more meds; the bag’s gotta be in the cupboards somewhere.”

Ian rolled onto his side and shook his head. Josh didn’t push him. Better to pick his battles— no point in wasting a victory on a couple of Tylenol if there was a fight in their near future over whether Ian was fit to be on stage.

. . .  


Josh had put aside his Kindle and was watching the “Welcome to New York” sign close in when Lauren opened the fridge, startling him out of his trance, and came up with a can of Pepsi.

“How goes the racing?”  
  
She laughed, voice still hoarse but sounding infinitely better than she had even that morning. “Great— I beat Nate three times in a row; he got mad; now we’re watching Up.”

“Isn’t that the one that tears your heart out in the first 10 minutes?”

Lauren shrugged. “Well, yeah, but it gets happy after that.” She pulled the ringtab on her pop and had to quickly duck down to suck at the fizzing foam. “Want to join?”

Josh glanced down at Ian, who had fallen asleep pressed against his leg. “Nah, I’m good.”

Lauren leaned against the counter, studying them. “How is he?”

“Not great.”

“Fever?”

Josh switched his Kindle to his far hand and pressed his palm against Ian’s forehead. “Maybe? Hard to tell.”

“And you? How are you doing?”

He paused, considering. “Still more tired than I should be, and I don’t think I could sing, but overall, yeah, I’m good. How ’bout you?”

She turned her hand over to show a crumpled, but apparently unused, Kleenex. “Haven’t gotten to the point where I can be more than two feet away from a tissue box, but I no longer feel like death.”

“Progress.”

“Thank god we’ve got another 24 hours before we have to be on stage…” Lauren pushed her hair out of her eyes, Kleenex still tucked against her palm. “You think he’s gonna make it?”

Josh looked down at Ian. “I think he’s gonna try.”

Lauren nodded. “Yeah.” She took a sip of her Pepsi and glanced toward the back lounge. “Well, I’m going back to the balloon house… yell if you need anything.”

. . .  


Josh wasn’t sure if he’d hit a particularly good section of his book or if it was just that he finally felt well enough to concentrate, but after weeks of picking at _The Gunslinger,_ he was finally able to dive into the story. He emerged a couple of hours later from Mid-World into late afternoon sun. He stretched and groaned and, when he looked around, was half-surprised to find things pretty much the way he’d left them. The only difference was the amount of traffic coursing around them, like the bus was an island in the middle of a fast-moving river.

He stood up carefully, muscles stiff, trying not to disturb Ian. Groaning, he stretched until his fingertips brushed the ceiling, then dropped down onto his heels next to the couch.

He’d expected Ian to still be asleep, or if he was awake, maybe playing around on his phone or watching the traffic go by. He hadn’t expected to find him pulling quick, shallow breaths, blankets clutched tightly around him, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and color burning high on his cheeks. When Ian met his eyes, his eyelashes were wet with tears.

“Whoa. Hey.” Gently, like he was reaching for a spooked horse, he brushed Ian’s bangs out of his eyes and pressed the back of his hand to Ian’s forehead. Fuck, yeah, no doubt now. He settled onto his knees. “Okay.” It wasn’t a question, it was reassurance, as if Josh knew what to do. (He didn’t. He really, really didn’t.) Fuck. _Fuck._ Josh bit his lip, then took a breath. “Hey, Laur?”

No response. Fuck, right, the movie. Or more Mario Kart. Or something, whatever, the point was the shouting wasn’t actually going to help. He hesitated, then pulled out his phone.

_this is me yelling for you._

She appeared ten seconds later, looking confused. He just gestured at Ian, whose eyes followed his hand and then slid closed. She sucked a breath through her teeth, dropped down to her knees beside Josh and slid a hand under Ian’s bangs. “Oh, _sweetheart_.” Ian blinked his eyes open again. “Can you sit up for me?” She motioned for Josh to slide back up onto the couch, and after some maneuvering Ian was tucked under his arm, shivering hard even after Josh rearranged his blankets.

“Okay.” Lauren tugged at the purple streak in her hair uncertainly. “Okay. Water, meds…” Josh pointed to the cupboards. “Right. Yeah.” After a minute of searching she came back with both, but she was flustered enough that Josh ended up taking the Tylenol bottle from her and wrangling open the childproof cap, arms still wrapped around Ian, and shook out a couple of pills. Ian took the water from Lauren and swallowed the meds without protest, managing not to spill more than a few drops of water in spite of his shaking hands, then slumped back against Josh. He was so quiet, so pliable, so _not Ian_ , that it was genuinely freaking Josh out, and clearly Lauren was a little panicked as well. Yeah, the current tour plague had sucked, he and Lauren and everyone had felt like shit for a couple of days, but it hadn’t left them, like, unresponsive, either. He didn’t have enough experience to know when you should get a higher authority involved, but this seemed like it was toeing the line. Not hospital-bad or anything, but maybe, like, walk-in-clinic-bad. Right? He bit his lip. They should probably wait for the meds to kick in, see if he came back around. Which he totally would. Yeah. It was all going to be fine.

Josh kept his thumb moving on Ian’s upper arm, skin on burning skin, until Ian started to relax. Probably not the meds so soon, just exhaustion from the effort of staying upright. Josh guided him back down to the blue fleece blanket-pillow and waited until his eyes closed before looking over his head at Lauren.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” She drew a shaky breath, raking her fingers through her hair. “Okay, I’m gonna go fill Nate in, call Isaiah…”

“Hey.” He reached out a hand. “C’mere.” When she took his hand, he pulled her in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You did great. You did so good.” He pulled back to look her in the eye. “Thank you.”

Lauren brushed a hand over her face, then laughed hoarsely. “What the fuck are we gonna do when we have kids? Neither of us have _any_ idea what the hell we’re doing.”

Josh laughed, too. “He’s good practice. We’ll just have to marry people who _do_ know what the hell they’re doing.”

Lauren half-smiled in return. “Try to get him to drink some more water if he wakes up, I guess?”

Josh mock-saluted. “Can do. I think we’re only an hour or so out. We’ll figure everything out then.”

. . .  


Josh waited until he was sure that Ian was really, truly asleep before worming his way off the couch and heading for the back. Ten minutes later, he was on the phone with Evan, asking him for yet another favor.

“Why, what’s up? Is Lauren still sick?”

“Nah, she’s doing better, but Ian’s got it now… he’s fucked up, man, it’s bad.”

“Fuck. You want to go through stuff tonight, figure out who’s taking what?”

Josh sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Ian was gonna be pissed. “Yeah, we’d better. Did you find out where we’re staying tonight?” Finding places to park two tour buses and a 15-passenger-van-plus-box-trailer overnight was not one of the easier parts of Isaiah’s job, and a lot of times they didn’t figure it out until they got to the town in question. Sometimes venues would let them crash there the night before, but it all depended on what else was happening there.

“Not sure; just following you guys around.”

“We’ll figure it out. Just take a look at Ian’s lyrics in the meantime?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“And… don’t say anything. To the internet. Y’know. At large.”

“Of course.”

It was probably a little insulting to actually say it; Evan knew the deal; but Ian possibly not singing was the kind of thing that couldn’t just get thrown out to the fans the night before with no forethought. By the time everyone showed up the next day there would be a rumor flying around that Ian was dying and another that he was leaving the band and it was… just really the sort of thing that they should leave to Isaiah. Or, more accurately, to Maddie, who would take whatever message Isaiah decided on and deftly put it out there to the world. Josh still wasn’t sure exactly what Maddie’s job title was (probably PA or Assistant Tour Manager or something), but there was no fucking way this tour could run without her. “Wizard” or something would be a better fit. Or— Maddie Li, Magician. That had a nice ring to it.

Josh couldn’t stop pacing after he got off the phone with Evan. Nate and Lauren had moved on to Call of Duty, again, and kept shooting angry noises at him every time he walked in front of the screen.

“Josh, he’s fine.” Lauren swiped at her nose with her crumpled tissue, then amended, “Okay, not _fine_. But he’s asleep, his fever’s down, Evan’s on board for tomorrow; we’ll make it work. And if we have to, we cancel the show.”

She threw it out there so casually, but the possibility hit him like the first sub-zero breath of winter. Nate, too, judging by the way he’d gone stony and still, only his thumbs moving as he kept firing on-screen. Lauren glanced between them.

“Guys, I know canceling sucks. I mean, seriously _sucks_. We’ve pushed through all kinds of shit to make it on stage every night. But one night off isn’t, like, the end of our careers.” She scrubbed a hand through her hair, frustrated. “It’s not worth anyone getting hurt.”

Junior year of college, Lauren had found herself, in her own words, drowning. She’d been depressed before, but this was different. She’d kept pushing through, unwilling to give up on the semester, until she’d ended up hospitalized during finals week. An underclassman had found her out on the library roof, disconnected and determined, staring down at the icy sidewalk below. Eight months later, she’d started the fall semester with a sense of calm that could only be partially ascribed to the meds; there was perspective there, too. The knowledge that there was a world outside of academia, and that failure didn’t mean that your life was over. Josh had never seen school as the be-all and end-all, but the band? Yeah, the pressure there was immense.

Nate sighed, giving in. “Alright. We have time; we’ll wait and see.” And then, a moment later: “JOSH. You know that saying about doors and windows? Sit. The fuck. Down.”

. . .  


Of their two temporarily-unconscious bandmates, Danny emerged first, appearing in the doorway as they pulled off the interstate, bleary-eyed and steadying himself on the doorway against the movement of the bus.

“He lives!” Lauren’s triumph was tempered by her hoarseness.

The sound that Danny made might’ve been agreement. He flopped backward onto the couch next to Nathan, who paused the game to look him over. “You good, man?”

Danny nodded, eyes closed. He looked fine, basically; way better than he had the day before. Sleep just got ahold of you after a while, pulling you back down even when there was no way you could possibly sleep any more.

Nate patted him on the knee and unpaused the game.

. . .  


Ian appeared twenty minutes later as they were weaving their way through town on streets that were definitely not built for a tour bus, let alone the makeshift version that the Alexandria in Flames guys were following them in. It still weirded Josh out that they were the headliners, with a string of opening bands following them around for a week or a month at a time. Looking in the bus’s sideview mirror was like looking into the past, and he could never quite get past the part where he was sitting in a leather armchair watching his bandmates play video games while those guys — Evan and Jonah and Chris and Brandon and their friend Will, who’d tagged along as sort of an all-purpose crew member/extra set of hands — were sprawled out over bench seats and duffel bags and each other, taking turns driving at 3 a.m. and praying that the van would keep running until they got to Boston. They were giving it all for crowds who probably wouldn’t remember their name, hoping that this time, this tour, would be the big break, the one that got them the tour bus and _Alexandria in Flames_ at the top of the marquee and five thousand people chanting _A-LEX, A-LEX_ while they smacked each other’s arms sidestage going, _Can you believe it, man? Can you fucking believe it?_ Josh would watch them and think about how weird it was that he actually had all that now. Yeah, they’d worked hard for it, harder than he’d worked for anything in his life, but not any harder than a hundred other bands in their position had, so why were they worthy? Were they, even?

Fuck.

Josh’s phone rang —Isaiah— startling him into the present to find Ian swaying in the doorway, pale and pained. Josh pushed himself out of the chair with one hand and hit _answer_ with the other, gesturing for Ian to take his spot and then taking him by the wrist when he made no move on his own and guiding him toward the chair. His skin wasn’t burning anymore. Good. That was good.

He finally remembered to put the phone to his ear. "Hey."

“We’re stopping for dinner. Italian or Mexican?”

Josh knew, intellectually, that the next step was to relay Isaiah’s question to the four people sitting in front of him, but he’d gotten distracted watching Lauren work her fingers through Ian’s sweaty curls, perched on the arm of the chair with his head on her thigh.

“You okay?”

Josh laughed, sort of, at the inadequacy of the question, before he realized that Isaiah couldn’t read his mind and probably thought he’d lost it.

“Yeah.” He pulled a hand down his face and slipped back through the curtain toward the bunks. “I think somebody’s gonna have to stay here with Ian, though.”

The noise of disapproval from Ian told him that he wasn’t actually out of earshot.

“He’s that bad off?”

“I dunno, man. He’s doing better, but earlier, that was…”

“Yeah.” Isaiah’s voice was serious. “Lauren told me.”

They were both quiet for a moment.

“Hey, survey the crowd for me, will ya? We’re gonna be downtown in a couple minutes.”

“Yeah, okay.”

He stopped in the doorway after he hung up, taking a second to breathe before he went back into the lounge. He was just… tired. If they had normal jobs, a sick day would just be a sick day, not a threat to their whole careers. Jesus Christ, his life had gotten weird.

He stepped back into the lounge. “Mexican or Italian?”

Danny gestured in Josh’s direction without opening his eyes. “Italian. And y’all better bring me back some baked ziti. And some garlic rolls.”

Lauren looked up, surprised. “You’re not coming?”

“Nah.” He sat up and glanced significantly at Ian, who was curled up in the chair, arms wrapped around himself, eyes closed. “Someone’s gotta hold down the fort.”

Danny’s normal method of taking care of sick people was to, well, not. From as far away as possible. It didn’t actually surprise Josh all that much that the rules were different with Ian, though.

The rules were always different with Ian.

He texted Isaiah the plan, and three minutes later they were pulling into the restaurant parking lot and promising to bring back ziti and garlic rolls for Danny and soup for Ian.

“And cannoli,” Danny called after them. “The plain kind, but with chocolate drizzled on top.”

. . .  


Halfway through dinner, Nate snorted a laugh and passed his phone down the table. Danny had sent him a picture: Ian, asleep on Danny’s massive shoulder, pinning down one of his arms so that he couldn’t lift the controller more than a couple inches off his knee. _This fucking kid,_ the text read, and yeah, that about summed it up. This fucking kid, whose charisma could lead people off the ends of the earth and who used that power for nothing but good; this fucking kid, whose endless optimism kept the rest of their cynical asses from killing each other on tour. This fucking kid, naive and clingy and brilliant, hurtling arms-open toward a future that Josh, at least, kept trying to fight like a riptide.

The angle of the picture cut off most of Danny’s face, but it caught the edge of his wry grin. _This fucking kid._ They wouldn’t have it any other way. 

. . .   
  


It was probably inevitable that Ian would try to crawl into bed with him, and normally that would be okay, but he and Lauren and Nate and half the crew had gone to a bar or three after dinner and now it was really late and these beds were really small and Josh’s first instinct was _no, no, no._

“C’mon, dude. Empty bunk. Right _there_.”

Well. “Empty” was a relative term. Since it was the one unassigned bunk on the bus (Isaiah and Jim, their driver, slept on the crew bus as often as not, but that didn’t mean their spots were up for grabs), the bed directly across from Josh’s had pretty quickly become the default out-of-sight-out-of-mind storage space for their bags and clothes and, well, everything. But still! It was there. For the taking. If Ian didn’t want to climb up into his own bunk —and given how shaky and off-balance he’d been since this afternoon, Josh really wasn’t going to push that idea— there was still a ground-level bed. Right. There.

Ian gave him a look like a forlorn puppy, but goddamn it, Josh had known him for too long for that to work.

… Goddamn it, Josh had known him too long for that _not_ to work.

He made Ian take the inside, again, but he still ended up effectively trapped when Ian curled into his side, fever-warm and too quiet except for his breath rattling in the dark.

“Hey.” Josh kept his voice low. When he didn’t get a response, he rubbed his knuckles over Ian’s back until he at least got a quiet groan. “I talked to Evan tonight. About tomorrow. Covering for you. If we need it.”

Ian shifted against him, shaking his head in protest.

“’s not set in stone. Just in case, okay? So we don’t have to cancel if you’re not better.”

Ian twisted around to look at him, hurt shining in his eyes. Shit. He wasn’t supposed to say that canceling part out loud. His mind was slower than his mouth, weighted down with alcohol.

“Not that we’re gonna cancel! I mean, we might.” _Shit._ Get it together. “It’s just. Before…” He trailed off as Ian clamped a hand over his nose, stifling a pair exhausted sneezes _—hNGT, nNGXXT—_ the way he did when he was trying to hide. Which, offstage at least, was pretty much never. Josh sighed and wrapped an arm around him, a little uncoordinated, pulling him to his chest. He handed over a mostly-clean bandana when Ian’s thick sniffling turned out to be louder than his words, which wasn’t hard because they were more or less whispered in Ian’s ear, as if saying them out loud might bring the ghost of this afternoon back around. “That was really fucking scary, dude.”

“’m okay.” Ian’s voice was hoarse and muffled against Josh’s shirt. “Don’t freak out. Don’t cancel the fucking show. I just.” He sighed, body wilting with exhaustion, then tensing when his inhale caught and turned into a vicious coughing jag. A minute later, when he’d gotten his breath back and Josh had stopped pounding on his back, he finished, “I just need some sleep.”

Josh didn’t point out that he’d been sleeping all day, just pulled him close again until the heat and the lack of space and the way the bed spun lazily every time he closed his eyes turned suffocating and he had to carefully push Ian off his chest and roll out of the bunk.

He held onto his phone extra tightly as he made his way to the front, not wanting it to slip from his wine-loosened grasp. He brought up Kate’s name and pressed _call_ , and let it ring three times before he thought to look at the time.

Whoops.

“Hello?”

“Sorry, didn’t mean t’ wake you up.” He licked his lips, trying to wake up his tongue, get it moving right. Maybe getting back up had been a bad idea.

“Nah, ’s fine, I’m on vacation.” She yawned. “What’s up?”

He ran through the list in his head, or tried to, and settled on the most immediate, concrete issue. “Ian stole my bed.”

She laughed, sleepy and soft. “I mean, it was probably an invasion; I doubt he wanted you to leave.”

“Well. I did.” He realized after he said it that it came out defiant. “I’m not… contractually obligated to be _squished_.”

Kate was quiet for a minute, long enough for Josh to run that back in his head and realize that he hadn’t quite gotten all the syllables in there, or maybe they were in there, just not in the right order. If he had to guess, which he did because she wasn’t saying anything and he wasn’t a goddamn mind-reader, she was debating whether it was worth trying to reason with him this late at night and with this much alcohol in his system. Which it wasn’t. He was perfectly reasonable. No, wait, that wasn’t right….

“Hazards of being friends with Ian, I guess,” she said, eventually, and didn’t say anything else.

There was something else, something important— Oh! “You’re in Boston!”

She laughed again. “I’m in Boston.”

“And I’m in Amherst! Or. One of those towns. Western Mass. Somewhere there.” He gestured vaguely at the city-darkness outside, which wasn’t as dark as it should’ve been. Too many streetlights.

“Mhmm.” Like she was waiting for him to get to the point. Not impatient, just amused.

“So you should come see us tomorrow! I mean, if we play. We might have to cancel because of Ian, but not if Evan sings, but Ian’ll kill us if Evan sings, but he’ll kill us way more if we cancel, so yeah, there will definitely be a show.” He nodded decisively.

She was quiet again. “Babe.” The word set off an ache way down deep in his gut; she was so fucking perfect, too fucking perfect, he wanted this all the time, screw his insecurities, he’d ask her out right now, ask her to marry him, fuck, they’ve known each other long enough, skip the in-between, jump right to rings and certainty and happily ever after and— “Babe, we talked about this.” And they had, they had, fuck— “I’ve only got four days out here and I haven’t seen Sarah and Devin and Lindsey in a year. More than a year, actually.” She stopped. The silence wasn’t her asking for an apology, but he knew he should give one anyway, for expecting too much, for trying to put himself ahead of her friends.

The words soured on his tongue. “Yeah.”

Kate sighed. “I’ll see you on Friday, okay? And Saturday. And part of Sunday. We’re good. Lots of time.” She yawned, then yawned again, and then so did he because yawning was contagious even over the phone and because it was late and he was maybe sort of more than a little drunk and maybe not 100% better from whatever currently had Ian laid out and now that he thought of it he just wanted to sleep.

“Yeah. Okay.” He was nestled down on the sick couch, which was probably a bad idea. “Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Maybe? We’ve got a bunch of stuff going on, but you can always try. I’ll just put my phone on silent if we’re in a museum or something.”

Right. That was reasonable, perfectly reasonable; she’d lived with these girls for three-plus years during and right after college and hadn’t seen them since last Christmas; one day with them without him interrupting was not too much to ask.

It didn’t stop him from feeling incredibly alone.

“Text me, let me know what happens with the show, okay?” She was fading, halfway back to sleep. “Tell Ian I hope he feels better.”

“I will.” He bit back a torrent of _wait stay I love you I’m sorry,_ because that’s the sort of shit you regret in the morning. “Night.”

“Night.”

He slid his phone into his pocket and forced himself off the couch, but found himself kind of stuck for other options when he wandered toward the back. Danny was sprawled out in the other lounge with a movie on, more awake than not after his day-long hibernation. Ian’s bed was free, but every bit as infected as the couch he’d just vacated (or maybe not, since Ian had made a point of only sleeping _on_ other people since he’d gotten sick, but Josh wasn’t interested in testing that theory), and while he was perfectly willing to peek into his own bunk and make sure that Ian was doing okay (his breathing was still weirdly noisy, but he seemed to be sleeping alright), he had no intention of being anyone’s pillow for the night. So. Not-empty bunk it was. Once he’d relocated their spare everything to a more-or-less-contained pile on the kitchen floor, it turned out that there were relatively clean sheets on the bed. Win.

Nate and Lauren’s curtains were pulled all the way shut, blocking out the noise and the light, but Josh hadn’t bothered to close his own when he got up to call Kate. He probably should’ve— Ian looked impossibly young and vulnerable and exposed curled up asleep in his bed. Maybe the curtain offered some kind of protection, the way even the thinnest blanket could hold back the monsters under your bed. Maybe he should reach across the aisle, pull it shut. Maybe he should crawl back in. Let himself be clung to. Feel useful, feel needed, _stay_.

Maybe they were twenty-fucking-five years old and it wasn’t his job to save Ian from the dark.

(Maybe the thought made his stomach flip, because it was, it was, it _was_.)

Ian’s breath caught and Josh tensed, like he was waiting for the foreman to read the verdict: stay or go; Michigan or the road; stability and Kate or Ian and Lauren and what he loved, what he couldn’t live without, what was destroying him in ways he’d never foreseen.

Ian’s breathing evened out and it wasn’t an answer, unless the answer was _wait_ , unless the answer was _you’re drunk, don’t even try to think this through_. He stared across the darkness and listened to Ian breathe until alcohol and exhaustion pulled him under as well, and that _—wait—_ would have to be enough of an answer for now.

  
. . .  
. . .

 


	5. Chapter 5

. . .  
. . .

  
Someone was choking. _Ian._ Fuck. He licked his lips and tried to swallow down stale beer and desert sand and stomach acid, _fuck,_ tried to get— Upright. Yes, okay, feet on the floor— Feet on the floor in the middle of the aisle, running up against rattling bones and too-skinny knees; wracking coughs and burning fingers scrabbling for his own. Lauren’s voice floated in the dark, trying to be calm but laced with fear, laced with frustration, pushing past them, taking control. The others were there, somewhere, shadows in the dimness, but she was the one who reappeared with water and pills and a tiny plastic cup of technicolor syrup, coaxing and soothing, _you got this, you’re good._ She had all that but he had Ian, free hand twisted up in a mess of dark hair, drawing him in, forehead to shoulder in the dark. He was dizzy, barely upright himself, and when Ian slumped sideways back into bed Josh let himself be pulled along, done fighting, at least for now.

. . .  


“You okay?” It was still dark, sort of, but the kind of dark that was really mid-morning filtered through layers of not-quite-closed curtains; just enough light to see Kleenex and cough drop wrappers and the spot where one of them had spilled water at 4 a.m. and hadn’t bothered to clean it up. Just enough light to see Ian’s eyes watching him in the dark.

A silent nod.

“Okay.”

. . .  


Ian climbed over him while Josh was still contemplating how, exactly, he was going to force his body out of the bunk and whether he would then immediately fall to the ground, because his head weighed approximately a million pounds and that was really the only logical sequence of events. By the time Josh had managed to make it out of the bunk, to the bathroom, and out to the kitchen to raid the mini fridge for yet another bottle of water (it was helping; he kept telling himself it was helping), Ian was sitting next to Lauren at the kitchen table, pale but otherwise apparently fine.

Josh squinted into the light. “’Time ’s it?”

“Noon.” Nate was sitting on the couch eating a bowl of cereal. Josh decided not to mention the germs.

“Have fun last night?” Danny was half-grinning at him from where he was leaned up against the counter. Josh blinked. Fun?

Oh, the bar. Bars. Right. “Mmm.” He couldn’t get the cupboard door open. Danny’s massive shoulder was in the way. Goddamn drummers. He pulled anyway, bumping the corner of the door against Danny’s grey sweatshirt until he deigned to move.

Water, painkillers, cereal. Doable. He dropped onto the corner of the bench, turning to face Ian and Lauren, studying them, a little suspicious.

 _hih— KSHH._ Ian blinked in surprise, squinted unevenly, and— _kuh-SHNGXXT._

“Bless,” Lauren murmured, not looking up from her phone. Nate tossed over the tissue box and went back to his breakfast. Or lunch, at this point. Like there was nothing to worry about, like everyone was fine.

Except— _not_ fine. Right? It hadn’t been a dream; he was in his boxers and nothing else because he’d stripped in the pre-dawn blackness when Ian’s fever-heat had threatened to suffocate him; that was real… just now, in the (piercingly) bright light of day, it all felt very far away, something half-remembered and heightened and like maybe he was losing his mind.

He asked, later, when they were getting their shit together for the show. Jim was navigating the narrow New England streets and Isaiah was on the phone with Maddie, who’d taken their one normal car (borrowed from a crew guy’s brother in PA with the promise that they’d drop it in New Jersey on their way through) somewhere and now couldn’t get the thing to start (which, okay, might’ve been the reason the guy didn’t mind being without it for a while).

“But you’ve got jumper cables, right?” Isaiah had his fingers dug so far into his temples that Josh was pretty sure he’d passed therapeutic self-massage and gone straight for actual harm. “Oh, Jesus Christ, this guy has a battery that’s fucked and he doesn’t carry goddamn _jumper cables?_ ”

The word _apoplectic_ was coming to mind. Probably a good time to escape.

Ian was rummaging around in his own bunk, pulling out clean-ish clothes for the show, steady on his feet for the first time in days.

“So you’re… okay? For tonight?” Josh felt weirdly nervous asking the question, like maybe he really had dreamed the whole late-night crisis, like maybe it was some sort of drunken vision, something secret and shameful.

Ian smiled at him, tired but lucid. “Yeah, I’m good now. Nate and Lauren went through the med stash and came out with a Plan, capital P, for what I’m supposed to take when. Nate put reminders in his phone. They— _hehh._ They analyzed this f— _fff… hik-CHUUU!_ They analyzed this fucker into submission.” He sniffed wetly. “Well.” A wry grin. “Mostly.”

Josh grinned back despite himself, then bit his lip. “But you’re…” he gestured in Ian’s general direction, still unsure. Ian caught his hand and pressed it to his own forehead with mock exasperation.

“See? 96.8. Or.” He furrowed his brow, still holding the back of Josh’s hand to his admittedly cool skin. “98.6?” He brightened; let go of Josh’s hand. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

Josh was pretty sure he’d made the right face to show that yes, that was good, okay, fine, he’d let it go, but maybe he hadn’t quite managed it, because Ian grabbed him (gently… ish) by both sides of the head. “Babe.”

Josh raised his eyebrows at the latest in a long series of insinuations that Josh was Ian’s nagging spouse. _Concerned._ That’s what Josh had tried to tell him the first hundred times. Not nagging. Concerned. Somebody had to make sure this fucking kid didn’t take a long walk off a short pier just because he was admiring the clouds.

“I’m fine. Okay? This morning was bad, but I’m fine.”

“Yeah.” Josh sighed, then decided he really didn’t have the grounds to disagree. “Okay! You’re fine. I got it.”

“Good!” Ian grinned and reached back up into his bunk. Somehow his attempt to pull down just the clothes he’d need for that night failed utterly, because of course it did, and there was a sudden downpour of fabric onto both of them. Ian jolted and swore and came up holding his ear, because, again, of course Ian would manage to get injured by his own wardrobe. Right.

Isaiah appeared in the doorway, still talking to Maddie, sweating profusely and trying to tie back his hair without dropping the phone. A single, too-short dreadlock escaped (“Goddamn it— no, not you, Maddie, what did AAA say?”) and took up residence directly in his line of sight. He swiped at it impatiently. “Guys. We gotta go. Get a move on.” A second strand escaped. The being able to tie his hair back thing was new. Possibly too new, if the length of the front bits were any indication. “This fucking— _argh!_ ” And there went the phone. Isaiah just stood there for a second, eyes closed, fists clenched, breathing deliberately. Josh picked up the phone and held it out, but Ian was the one to get his hands on Isaiah’s shoulders for the length of a single deep breath, then tuck the offending bits of hair in amongst their fellows, then take the phone from Josh and put it in Isaiah’s hand.

Isaiah opened his eyes.

“Okay?”

Isaiah nodded curtly, then turned to leave, clapping Ian on the shoulder on his way out the door. “Yeah, Maddie, I’m here. So _what_ are they gonna have to do, again?”

. . .  


Nate’s phone buzzed after sound check and he pulled out a whole handful of pills that Ian swallowed down with a grimace and chased with some cough syrup thing. By the time they were ready to go on he was bouncing with excitement but didn’t seem particularly high, so maybe Nate and Lauren really had found the magic Plan. When Josh told Evan that they were all set, there was a flicker of disappointment in the singer’s eyes that he quickly masked. “Good! Glad to hear he’s feeling better.”

“Just…” Josh glanced around, wary. “Stay sidestage, just in case, okay?”

Evan nodded, trying not to look too enthusiastic. “You got it, man.”

. . .  


They didn’t need Evan, although Ian turned the mic to the crowd more and more as the night went on, letting them scream back the words, before rallying for the closer and the encore. Afterward, he got as far as the dressing room before he was overtaken by a fit of harsh, messy sneezes, directed into a huge handful of paper towels: _hurSHUNGT! heh-CHNGT! eh-chhhngt, eh-CHngt, heh-NGXXT, heh-ngt-CHUU!_ He blew his nose messily and grabbed for another stack to repeat the process. Danny pressed him into a chair. “Sit down before you fall down, kid.” Ian nodded, exhausted, and finished with a final, drawn out _hihhh… ngtCHUU!_ He coughed pitifully, panting and spent, before he seemed to remember where he was and pulled himself together.

“I’m going out to sign.” The fact that Ian had any voice left at this point was kind of miraculous.

Isaiah laughed. “Not a chance in hell.”

A text from Kate: _how’d it go?_

He paused long enough to see Ian giving Isaiah the patented puppy-dog look. _weirdly fine. Ian is better now, I guess?_

His phone buzzed just as Isaiah threw up his hands: “Fine! Fifteen minutes.” Ian pouted. “Twenty,” Isaiah relented. Ian grinned and ran out the door before Isaiah could change his mind.

_> what, you don’t believe him?_

Josh shrugged out of habit, forgetting that she couldn’t exactly see him. _Time will tell. See you tomorrow?_

He grinned at the response: _FUCK YEAH. Wouldn’t miss it for the world._

. . .  
. . .  
  
  


Ian’s voice had a way of breaking in the leap from chest voice to scream or out of a falsetto run: a split second of weakness that brought people to their knees. It was happening now, with Ian in close to the radio station mic, voice low and cracked, running over familiar words. They’d been asked the same questions hundreds of times. You smiled and you answered and you tried to keep the scriptedness out of your voice, and if you were Ian, you dipped your head to look up from under your bangs because the DJ was staring at you, lip caught between teeth and pupils wide.

Ian might’ve been eating up the attention (and flirting right back), but the way his hand shook when he pushed his hair out of his eyes brought out the impatient, protective streak in Josh _hard_ , like, okay, wrap it already; clearly it was time to go. It didn’t help that his phone had buzzed five minutes earlier with the news from Kate that she was at the hotel, checked-in and waiting. The text had sparked electricity in his skin, nerves pinging: _come on come on come on._

His focus snapped back to the studio when Ian pulled back suddenly from the mic to muffle a coughing fit, lungs spasming behind closed lips in a half-successful bid for control. They were all pressed around him with their stools pulled close in part because there was a camera on them for the radio’s website and in part because Ian had long since started to fade, eyes going vague and exhausted behind his smile. At some point, Lauren had taken his hand under the desk, and Josh could see her thumb sweeping back and forth over Ian’s like she was unconsciously ticking off the seconds until their escape. Josh was on his other side, shoulder to shoulder, and Nathan and Danny were a solid wall behind them, up on taller stools, knees at their backs.

“Alright, guys, it was so nice talking to you, thanks for coming in!” The DJ was glancing between the producer and the giant digital clock at the top of her computer monitor. Josh could see that “Tonight” was cued up underneath, blinking, waiting for the click of the mouse that meant they were free. He remembered to contribute a goodbye to the mess of thanks and farewells before the moment had passed. “Everyone, The World Above! And don’t worry, we haven’t been ignoring your requests, we’ve just been saving the best for last. Here it is, the song that made them famous: ‘More than Tonight.’” The click they’d been waiting for, and the familiar opening riff, and then they were pulling off their headphones and saying goodbye, again, off-air this time, and thanking everyone and making sure Ian was still upright and letting Isaiah herd them out into the sunshine. The hit of fresh air was fuel on the fire of the sparking in his veins and all he could think was thank god, thank _god_.

The minivan taxi was waiting for them outside the studio door, a yellow beacon of _Kate, Kate, Kate_. They squeezed in with Nathan and Lauren and Danny in the back and Josh and Ian in the middle bench seat. Isaiah was in front, next to the driver, pointedly ignoring the GPS on the dashboard and giving the driver directions at every turn. Ian was huddled even smaller than normal inside an oversize hoodie, but Josh was sprawled out, arm thrown across the back of the seat and knees driving at the floor like Danny with a double bass pedal. He forced his body to still halfway into the drive when Ian’s slow slide sideways and down landed him against Josh’s chest. Ian was shaking enough for the both of them, anyway, hands stuffed deep in the pocket of his sweatshirt. He hadn’t opened his eyes since they’d gotten in the van.

There was a whispered exchange behind him ended with Danny’s leather jacket draped over the seatback and Josh’s arm. Josh flashed a half-smile in thanks, but when he shifted so that he could pull the jacket over Ian like a blanket, Ian jerked and hissed in pain. _Okay._ He went slow, but still ended up with Ian pressed up against him, hands cradling his head like maybe they could keep out the world. _Okay, bud. Okay._ When he looked back, everyone’s faces were grim.

Ian had almost relaxed against him by the time they got to the hotel, pulled down by sleep, but getting out of the van was a whole ordeal of its own. They didn’t fight Ian when he shrugged off their help, because phones were cameras and computers these days and _frontman leaves interview clearly fucked-up_ was the sort of shit that started rumors that were hard to stop. By the time they got into the lobby, Ian’s face was ashen and Josh’s nerves were frayed.

And then—

 _Kate._ There in the lobby; concerned, clearly concerned, but radiant and moving forward and he might’ve dropped his backpack but he wasn’t sure because _Kate_ was there, in his arms, soft and warm and real. No words, just burying himself in her embrace until he realized the pricking behind his eyelids wasn’t going to subside and he might actually lose it right there in the middle of the lobby floor. He pulled back.

“God, I missed you.” He’d had these aspirations of staying cool. So much for that.

She grinned up at him, fingertips grazing at the hemline of his shirt. “Me too.”

Those green eyes, _fuck,_ he could’ve just stared forever, but the world hadn’t actually ground to a halt just because Kate was here. Isaiah had gone to check in; the buses were on their way; Ian had successfully lowered himself onto a lobby bench with Lauren on one side, fussing over him, and Danny on the other, a stony sentinel. Nate was pacing, texting Ellie, refusing to sit down.

“Fourth floor.” Isaiah was back. The stack of small manila envelopes in his hands was as thick as a deck of cards. “Elevators?” It wasn’t really a question.

Ian nodded wearily and let Lauren and Danny pull him up. The way his head lolled at the movement made Josh’s stomach turn, but the strong hands at Ian’s elbows kept him from swaying on his feet. _Okay._ A mantra. Maybe if he said it enough, it’d be true.

Kate slipped her fingers through his as the elevator doors slid closed. On his other side, Ian’s grip tightened around his wrist at the jolt of the car moving up. Josh closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the points of connection and everything they implied. _Don’t think about it now._ That was what Kate would say. Had said. Would undoubtedly say again, tonight and over and over. _You try to figure it out now, you get stuck because the actual problem gets tied up in all the other shit; how you’re tired and jittery and any little thing’ll send you over the edge. Sleep on it, yeah? Try again tomorrow. See if it’s easier then._ He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back. _Okay, okay, okay._

Ian didn’t let go when they got to their floor, and when Josh glanced over, he was breathing deliberately, eyes closed. Alright. Well, they couldn’t stay in the elevator forever. He stepped forward and Ian followed, shaky but compliant. Blind leading the blind, or whatever.

Isaiah handed off the keycards, pressing two into Josh’s palm with a look that was equal parts _good luck_ and _we have two hours to decide whether we’re canceling this show; I’m going to need an answer here._ Because that was on him, apparently.

He was grateful when Kate slipped the keys out of his hand a minute later and even more grateful when she conquered the lock on the first try. He toed off his shoes and was trying to get Ian to do the same when he noticed that she’d taken the eight zillion decorative pillows off the nearer bed and turned down the sheets, because unlike him, she was a person with enough foresight to predict that yeah, that was the next destination, for sure. Ian swayed dangerously when he tried to balance to get his foot out of his shoe, and Josh muttered _fuck it_ under his breath and pulled him over to sit on the bed, pushing him down not quite as gently as he could have and crouching down to take off his shoes like Ian was five, and it was this rush of frustration and protectiveness and something deep and breathtaking and wrapped around his very core in a way he did not fucking have time to sort out right now.

Shoes off, Ian curled up slowly, like it hurt to move, tipping sideways onto one of the remaining normal pillows and pulling his knees toward his chest, eyes squeezed shut and breath ragged. Lauren appeared in the doorway just as Josh was pulling the blankets up over him. Kate was hanging back, chewing on her thumbnail, unsure whether to intrude. A second later, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Lauren. “Isaiah wants an answer now, but he’s gonna have to wait. Let’s let him sleep for an hour or two.” Her voice is low, meant only for him. “I’ll stick around. You—” she glanced at Kate and gave him a tired grin. “Go. Have fun. See you at sound check.” He nodded, relieved and grateful, and turned back to pick up his shoes and backpack. Kate still had the keycards; he set one on the table next to Ian’s bed and shoved the other into his back pocket. Isaiah had this rule that no matter what your actual sleeping arrangements were on hotel nights, you had a keycard to a room that was, at least on paper, yours (and if you managed to get locked out/kicked out/whatever after that, it was on you, not him), so as far as their official spreadsheet was concerned, Josh was sharing a room with Ian and Kate just happened to have a room on the same hall, one that was on Josh’s credit card and not the band’s. Once he’d put himself back together, he turned back toward the bed. Lauren was sitting up against the headboard and running her fingers through Ian’s hair. Ian was visibly starting to relax. Okay. Ian would sleep, and they would wait, and then they’d either cancel or not, and the world would keep turning.

Okay.

He let out a breath and turned to Kate. “Shall we?”

Her smile was slightly shaky, but determined. “Fuck yeah.”

And then they were together in the dark, safe behind drawn curtains and locked doors and that one playlist on Kate’s phone, Beyoncé and Banks and Troye Sivan. A breadcrumb trail of shoes and jackets and jeans and shirts led from the door to the bed and the sheets had been pulled back and his breath was already catching with the weight of her hips and her hands and her lips, heavy and soft, long red hair cascading around the edges of his vision and Jesus Christ, Jesus _Christ_ there was nothing more perfect in this world or, he thought, the next.

. . .  


“I want this.” Words in the dark, low and rough. “All the time.”

Her skin warm against his. Quiet breaths. No reply.

“I won’t fuck this up.”

When she hummed in consideration, it stopped the breath in his lungs. “You might fuck it up.” Toes against his leg, drawing, winding, pushing away. “So might I.” Her fingers in his hair, rolling a curl between forefinger and thumb.

“You won’t.”

“I might. It’s not like I’m not human, Josh.”

“No, but—”

She pushed herself up on her elbow, a dim silhouette against the curtains, backlit in afternoon light. “I’m not leaving Chicago. Not for the next five years, maybe longer.”

“I know.”

“And you’re not staying put. So that’s long distance for… ever, Josh. However long we’re together, we won’t be in the same place.”

“I might.” Those pins and needles behind his eyes were back, saying it out loud—

“You might what?”

“I might—” he blinked, swallowed, tried again. “I might stay put. For a while.”

He was tensing, but she was softening, putting the pieces together. “You can do that, you know.” His breath caught and it might’ve been a sob, probably was a sob, and her thumb swept over his cheek— “You don’t have to stay.”

And that was it, the permission, and the floodgates were broken and he was sobbing in her arms and she was murmuring the words like a lullaby, _you don’t have to stay; you don’t have to stay,_ and then, pretty soon, when he tried to talk and it just renewed the flood, _and you know what else, babe, you don’t have to decide tonight._

. . .  


Forehead to forehead in the shower, every breath in the steam a release of tension he’d been holding for months, for years. Silence, and then— “Yes.”

“Yes, what?” Her hands, when he took them, were foamy with soap.

“This. Us.” He shook his dripping bangs out of his eyes. “I want to do this. For real.” He paused for breath. For courage. “I’m so fucking sorry I led you on for so long. Or strung you along. Or whatever the right term is, just… I’m sorry.”

“Dude, no one can lead me anywhere I don’t want to go.” She quirked her eyebrows up at him. “I’ve been saying yes to this every step of the way.”

“Then I guess… I guess I’m finally saying yes back.”

She grinned, and he pulled her to him, and maybe it was the water that made it hard to breathe or maybe it was relief, but whatever it was, it was making him kind of giddy in the best possible way. “So, Kate Erikson—” he took a shaky breath— “do you want to go steady?”

Kate burst out laughing, and when she said, “Yes, fucking yes,” so did he.

. . .  
. . .

 

There was enough time to spend another half-hour in bed, or in the hotel bar (celebratory drinks seemed fitting, time of day be damned), but Josh inevitably found himself back in Ian’s room instead. He’d texted Lauren: _everything okay over there? do you need me to come back?_ There was a long pause, then a completely ambiguous _yeah_ in reply. He stared at it for a minute, then sighed. “I think I’d better go talk to Lauren.” Kate, mostly asleep, had hummed quietly in assent. “Back soon.” He kissed her, smiled, and kissed her again, reveling in the giddiness that flared with every breath.

He didn’t bother with shoes, just padded down the carpeted hallway in his socks, knocked quietly, and let himself into the room. Ian was asleep, wrapped up in the duvet with Lauren curled around him. She waved sleepily in the dimness, yawned, and stretched.

“How’s… everything?”

She curled back around Ian to get a hand on his forehead, then nodded, satisfied. “Alright. He’s been asleep since the meds kicked in.”

Josh glanced at the clock on the bedside table. “Hate to do this, but…”

Lauren nodded, yawned again. “No choice.” She slid off the bed and headed for the bathroom. “You mind doing the honors?”

“Nah, ’s fine.” He crouched by the bed and gently shook the part of the blanket that looked most like a shoulder. “Ian.” A catch in Ian’s breath, but no real move toward consciousness. “Sorry, bud, you gotta wake up.”

He got a groan in return, one that turned into a chesty cough, buried in the comforter, that didn’t stop and didn’t stop.

“Alright, alright, you’re okay.” When Ian tried to sit up, Josh pulled him the rest of the way. “C’mon, scooch over, that’s it.” He managed to perch half on and half off the edge of the bed, one arm around Ian’s shoulders and the other bracing his spasming chest. He could feel Ian’s heart pounding under his palm.

Once the fit had mostly given way to panting, Josh dragged a hand through Ian’s hair. He was sweating from exertion, but Lauren was right, he didn’t feel overly warm.

“Hey.” Low and way too late, but what else was there to say?

“Don’t cancel the show.” Well, there was that.

“Ian—”

“I’m gonna do it.” His voice was rough and strained, and his breath crackled with every inhale. He coughed again to clear his throat. “You can’t tell me you wanna let those kids down.”

Those fucking puppy-dog eyes. “I mean, no, but I don’t want you to pass out mid-song, either.”

“I’m good.” Ian pulled in a deep, careful breath, and his lungs didn’t rebel. “Help me up, I gotta pee.”

Josh didn’t have any logical protest to that, so he gave up his perch and grabbed Ian’s hands to pull him to his feet. He tried not to go too fast but, judging by the way Ian blanched at the change in altitude, he didn’t quite succeed. Lauren appeared beside them, concerned, but Ian pushed past them into the bathroom and pulled the door shut behind him. Josh looked at Lauren, and then at the closed bathroom door, and then back at Lauren. She shrugged, helpless.

“How long do we have to call this off?” Josh wasn’t sure he actually wanted an answer, but the question needed to be asked.

“I mean, if we were gonna do it, we should have done it last night, or first thing this morning— people would’ve been out train tickets and hotel rooms, but at this point…” She tugged at the purple streak in her hair in frustration. “You know there’s already a line.”

He scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “But we still have time?”

“I mean, there’s always time. But in order for this not to be a complete shitshow? Half an hour. Maybe.”

 _“Fuck,”_ he muttered. “… Evan?”

She pulled out her phone. “Yeah, we should get him on board.” When she put the phone to her ear, Josh could hear the distant ring. He moved closer to eavesdrop.

The ringing cut off, there was a pause, and then a somewhat muffled _“Higk-choo! Ugh. Hello?”_

“Bless.” Lauren shot Josh an _oh shit_ look over the top of the phone. “Don’t tell me you’ve got this crap, too.”

_“I’b good. Whadt’s ubp?”_

“Same old, same old— our singer’s trying to run himself into the ground, won’t listen to reason, might pass out on stage… figured we should have a backup plan.”

 _“Shidt. I— hih. Heh… gTCH.”_ A loud sniff. _“I cad probably do it, I’b jusdt, umb…”_

“Dying?” Lauren kept her voice in the realm of wry amusement, but she was tugging at her hair again. “It’s fine, dude. We’ll figure it out. Do what you’ve gotta to get through your set, don’t worry about us.”

_“Ogkay. Fugk, I’b really sorry…”_

“Shut up.” She was gentle. “Go track down Maddie; she’s got the inside scoop on meds. Drink a shit-ton of water, don’t talk, you know the drill.”

 _“Thangks.”_ He sounded exhausted, and resigned.

Lauren hung up and looked at Josh. “Shit.”

He scrubbed at his face again. He was getting a headache, and it had nothing to do with the illness he’d just barely kicked.

In the silence, Josh glanced at the bathroom door. He’d heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on while Lauren was talking to Evan, but Ian hadn’t emerged. Actually, now that he thought about it, it sounded like the sink was still on.

“Ian?” Nothing. “Can I come in?” He cracked the door. When there was no sound of protest, he swung it open enough to step inside.

Ian was sitting on the edge of the tub, elbows on knees and head in his hands. Soapy water had dripped down his arms and pooled on his bare legs. Lauren must’ve convinced him that sleeping in skinny jeans was a terrible idea and helped him pull them off an hour ago, but now that he’d emerged from the cocoon of blankets, he was left with the incongruous combination of boxer briefs and a way-too-large hoodie he’d stolen from an ex ages ago and never returned.

The water was still running in the sink. Josh flipped the faucet handle down and, in the sudden quiet, handed Ian an over-starched white hand towel from the rack on the wall. When Josh leaned back against the counter, surveying him, Ian closed his eyes against the scrutiny and slid down to sit with his back against the tub, knees pulled in close to his chest.

Josh dropped into a crouch in front of him. “What happened?”

“Got dizzy.”

“Yeah.” He lowered himself down to sit cross-legged, settling in. “And now?”

Ian shrugged one shoulder. Lauren was leaning against the door jamb, trying not to hover. Josh let the silence hang for a while, listening to Ian’s ragged breathing and congested, ineffective sniffs.

Then, low and steady: “Level with me, man.”

Ian looked up at him from under his bangs, and his eyes were glassy but focused. Then, suddenly, his eyelashes fluttered and his lips parted, breath hitching with a rasp, and— _hihh… huhhh… hngTCHNGT._ “Oh, god—” shocked and pained— _hhhnCHXXT, hNG…TSCHU!_ — forehead pressed to knees, both hands held tight to his right ear, and a stifled, strangled groan.

“Okay, okay.” Murmured like a lullaby, hands on Ian’s shoulders, arms, hands. Ian’s nose was dripping dangerously and he was making no move to stop it, so Josh took it upon himself to grab the discarded towel and rescue Ian’s upper lip from impending doom. Ian’s breath caught again, and an instant later Josh found himself catching a muffled _mmchmp. eh… heh. eh… heh…. hik-CHMP!_ in the makeshift handkerchief. “Christ, LeClere, the things I do for you—” but it was under his breath, without heat, cut off by Ian’s quiet moan.

Lauren was at their side by then, and when Josh leaned back she moved forward, fingers grazing over Ian’s hands. “Let me see, sweetheart.” Josh wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but Ian let her push his hands gently out of the way. Ian’s ear… looked like an ear. When Lauren touched it, though, he jerked back like her fingers were electrified.

Josh exchanged a look with Lauren. “Well, fuck.” He turned back to Ian, eyebrows raised. “You were planning to play this show with an ear infection? Can you even hear?”

“Yes.” Breathless, but firm. He coughed. Grimaced. “I could hear you guys…” A rasp of an inhale. “… Plotting.”

“Not plotting. Planning. Just in case.” Lauren had her hands in his hair again, carding through the curls. Soothing. Trying to infuse reason through her fingertips, or, like, Soviet brainwave shit.

“Behind my back, though.” A measured breath. “Not a fucking kid.” Another exchange of glances at that one, Danny’s text fresh in their minds. “I decide when I can’t take it anymore. This is not even close.” His point was undercut by a painful _hikgsTSCHu! “Oww…”_

Josh pressed the hand towel into Ian’s palm, and was glad to see that this time Ian had the wherewithal to blow his nose productively before making a face, dropping the towel in the corner, and wiping his nose on his sleeve instead.

The tension headache was tightening its grip. Josh kneaded hard at his temples. Kate was probably wondering what was taking him so long.

Ian sniffed, and sniffed again, a thick sound that made Josh’s stomach twist. It gave way to coughing, again, buried in his sweatshirt sleeve. Ian was trying not to shiver, and failing. Josh slid around to sit next to him, and at a wheedling nudge from Ian, got an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in. They really should get off the tiled floor.

“Okay, so this is a _we’re calling this off,_ right?” Lauren sounded so sure, like it was already settled, like the alternative was absurd.

“No fucking way.” Ian, immediate; gravel in his voice, at the same time as Josh was saying, “Laur, we have to at least talk to everyone else.”

A pause, the digital _taptaptap_ of a phone-screen keyboard, then Lauren, suddenly terse: “Alright, fine. Everyone else is on their way. Are we having this meeting on the bathroom floor? Because I would really rather not.”

Getting Ian from the floor back to his bed was more of an ordeal than Josh would’ve liked, but by the time Isaiah and Danny and Nathan appeared at their door, looking incredibly serious, Ian was sitting up against the headboard, washed-out but determined. Lauren was cross-legged at his feet, one of the ridiculous decorative pillows in her lap, twisting at the fringe. Josh had started pacing and couldn’t stop.

Silence.

“We’re not canceling.”

“Ian—”

“One, there’s like a hundred kids already in line.” His voice was tight, strained; frustration and exhaustion and hoarseness and— “Two, I can sing.” He ticked off his list on his fingers like that made it official. “Three, I don’t even have a fever. Ask Lauren.”

Isaiah’s hair was escaping its half-ponytail again. He pushed it back off his forehead with both hands. “Because you’re heavily medicated? Doesn’t count.”

“Josh was basically delirious like four days ago and he played; I didn’t see you yelling at him.”

Josh felt like he should probably object to that, but he couldn’t find the grounds.

“I’m not fucking around with this, LeClere.” This was where Isaiah-as-tour-manager kicked in. “You go out there and sound like shit, you forget your lyrics, you’re stumbling around like you’re drunk, that reflects on everyone. You pass out on stage?” He shook his head. “That makes the goddamn news.”

“Fuck you, Isaiah.” There was a slow flush spreading up his neck and the flash of angry tears in the corners of his eyes.

“Ian—” Lauren, this time. It was becoming a refrain.

Isaiah pushed on. “So we’re having this conversation now, and you’re going to be honest, and then we’re going to decide whether you guys are playing this show.”

“Yeah, _you’re_ going to decide. I don’t even get a say.”

Nate had been hanging back, crossed arms and an intense stare, a mirror of Danny next to him. “You get a say. Just don’t be an idiot about it.”

“I can do it.”  
  
“You’re allowed to say no. The kids’ll get over it. Evan’s sick anyway; it’s not like the Alex guys are gonna be mad about having a reason not to play.”

“I can fucking do it, Nate.”

Nathan shrugged. “Okay, then.”

Lauren was shaking her head, gearing up for a fight, but Danny cut her off. “Laur, we’ve all played when we felt like shit. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have a career.” He glanced a the clock on the bedside table. “If we’re doing this, let’s do it.”

Isaiah glanced at Josh. “Miller?”

Josh looked Ian up and down again. He looked like shit, but he looked determined. The kid was stronger than any of them gave him credit for, and they’d all played through worse, and it was finite, an hour or two; anyone could push through that if they had to, right? And Ian was looking at him with those puppy-dog eyes mixed with _I can fucking do it, man, don’t let me down,_ so— okay. “If he says he’s good, he’s good.” And then it was out there, and there was no going back. “Maddie can get him all drugged up, we’ll make it through, and there’ll be plenty of time to collapse after the show.”

Lauren’s glare very clearly said _traitor,_ but she didn’t have any time to make her case.

“You heard the man, Oladele.” Danny smacked at Isaiah’s shoulder and headed for the door. “See y’all on the bus.”

“Alright.” Isaiah looked resigned. Lauren just looked kind of shell-shocked that the tide had turned against her so fast. “We’re fucking doing this. Ian—” Isaiah softened. “Put yourself together, get Maddie to give you the good stuff, don’t even think about singing during sound check. I don’t even want to see you on stage until 9:00.”

“Yes, sir.” A mock salute.

“And shut the fuck up. You’re not allowed to talk. Not on stage, either; Lauren, that’s all on you.”

Ian flipped off Isaiah as soon as his back was turned, but the _fuck you_ wasn’t malicious this time. As soon as Isaiah had followed Nathan and Danny out of the room, Ian slumped back against the headboard.

“What the fuck, Ian.” Lauren was massaging her temples with the heels of her hands.

He spread his arms wide: _come at me._ “You really want to cancel?”

“No, but—”

“So we’re not.” He coughed, and coughed some more, hand pressed tight over his ear, and pulled himself together again. “I’m gonna shower before we go.”

“Like hell.”

“Don’t trust me alone? Gue… _ha-CHNNGT! sniff._ Guess you’ll just have to come in with me.”

“You fucker.”

Josh rolled his eyes at them and glanced at the clock.

“Go, go.” Lauren was already pulling off her shirt. “I’ll make sure this idiot doesn’t end up in the hospital from shower-related injuries; you go back to Kate and tell her she’ll get to watch from sidestage after all.”

. . .  
. . .

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

. . .  
. . .  


It was a stupid fucking idea and by the time the were listening to the Alex guys wrap up sound check they all knew it, but the window of opportunity to cancel was gone. Their own sound check had been disorganized and tense. Ian did have to sing, in the end, which quickly devolved into a losing battle between their sound guy’s attempts to bring up the levels and Ian’s rapidly fading voice. Isaiah was pissed and Josh’s head was splitting and then, suddenly, Ian was swaying— _shit._ Josh was close enough to at least point Ian in the direction of the drum riser before he could actually fall over, but still. At some point, somebody had to call it.

Ian had grabbed Josh’s wrist somewhere on their way down to the riser, which would’ve been fine except that Ian’s first instinct when his breath started hitching was to cover, and— _hih… NGTCHU—_ goddamn it— _NGXXT—_ in spite of decently quick reflexes, his hand didn’t quite escape the line of fire.

There was a red blur through the air that turned out, blessedly, to be a bandana, because Nathan was on top of this shit. Josh got his hand wiped off just in time to hand over the handkerchief to Ian so that he could muffle one last sneeze— _ehhh… chMPHT—_ into the fabric and to try, mostly without success, to clear out his nose. Breathless, Ian dropped his head onto Josh’s shoulder and groaned. It wasn’t the keen of _holy fuck that hurts_ that it had been before, just exhausted frustration. The painkillers must’ve kicked in. That was something, at least.

“Gabe, we’re fucking done here.” Isaiah’s consonants were popping on Ian’s too-hot mic, and he looked ready to kill. “Turn him up, turn him down, I don’t care, just figure it out. On the spot, I guess, since we’re not getting anywhere now.”

From the mixing board, Gabe glowered behind his hair (emo bangs, half a decade out of style) but gave up the fight.

“Alright, up.” The rest of them had more shit to do, but Josh figured that if he could get Ian to follow Isaiah offstage, they’d be better off on several counts. He hooked Ian under the arm and started to pull.

A gasp. “J, everything’s—”

Spinning. He knew the feeling. Okay, back down then, Ian fragile in his arms.

It was Isaiah who wound up hauling Ian up and offstage so the rest of them could finish sound check. When they got to the green room fifteen minutes later, they found Ian curled up on the couch under three people’s jackets with the remnants of the meds Maddie had dug up scattered on the side table. His eyes and nose were leaking involuntarily but he was more asleep than not, so they’d take it.

Kate was watching Ian, too. She’d started to speak a couple of times, but hadn’t gotten past the deliberate intake of breath.

“Say it.” Arms around her waist from behind, words buried in kisses on the back of her neck.

Another one of those half-starts before she turned around in his arms. Those eyes, god _damn_.

“This is a bad idea.”

Josh sighed. “Yeah. Well…” he shrugged. “Here we are.”

“Okay, but.” Hesitant. She was never hesitant. Carefully considered, sure, but not afraid to speak her mind. “As a teacher—” She stopped, and started again. “So there’s ‘eh, a little bit off,’ and then there’s ‘102.3 and about to puke on your shoes.’” She pulled back a bit to look him in the eye. “Ian is most definitely in category two, here. For the record.”

Like a goddamn hurricane.

He dropped his aching head to hers. “I know.”

“Okay. I just had to…” She stopped, fingers at the border of his jeans and his back. “I just had to say something.”

Stars bursting behind his closed eyes. And again: “I know.”

. . .  


Josh’s lasting memory of that stretch of pre-set uncertainty was this image of Ian pushed up on the couch, makeshift jacket-blankets falling and tangling, one hand holding himself up and the other hovering somewhere between his face and the world, shaking, shaking. They’d all been watching him in sidelong glances, but that movement— restless sleep to _about to puke on your shoes—_ caught them off-guard. Before Josh could figure out whether this was the sort of situation where he was supposed to take charge, Danny was there, kneeling at Ian’s feet.

“Hey, man. You’re good. You’re good.”

Ian was shaking his head, just a little bit, trying not to upset the delicate balance, trying to grab for— Danny’s shoulder, maybe, but Danny grabbed his hand and pulled it back to his lap.

“Don’t you dare. Gotta keep those meds down, you need that shit, okay?” Danny pushed Ian’s hair back to look him in the eye.

Ian’s back spasmed, but he kept it together. Lauren dropped a trash can at their side and backed away again, equal parts wary and concerned.

“You got this.” Danny kept his voice quiet, but it still filled up the frozen room. “I know it sucks now, but it’s gonna help, I swear, kid, it is—” and on and on, a litany of reassurance until Ian’s breathing evened out and he sank back into the couch.

Kate glanced at the clock on the wall, and Josh followed her gaze. The local openers were almost done; time was ticking down. _“Fuck.”_ Tight, under his breath, trying to get the vise grip on his temples to release. Kate slipped her hand into his. They could’ve called the whole thing off; he could be wrapped up in Kate right now in their hotel bed, her fingers working through his hair and down past his shoulder blades, _relax,_ but they hadn’t so he couldn’t so—

Painkillers. In the absence of any of that, painkillers would have to do.

. . .  


To Ian’s credit, he lasted half the set. A little more, technically speaking. He was shaking and sweating, voice breaking (god, it brought them to their knees), but he stayed up, screaming out the words, breathless and shaking some more. They’d left a stool out for him after the acoustic break and he’d been half-perched behind his keyboard ever since, bracing and then sliding off and then pushing back up with trembling legs.

 _… never could outrun, outrun you._  
_My lips are split, bleeding, burnt-out copper spilling;_  
_swallow it down, swallow it down, thinking I deserve every blow—_

Josh’s guitar line —a counterpoint to Nathan’s— was intricate, and familiar, and he was mesmerized by the hazy mass of people screaming along,

_—I’d burn this city down if I didn’t think your ghost would follow me—_

and maybe that was why he didn’t notice at first that Ian had stepped away from the mic, leaving Lauren and the audience to make up the difference as they hit the second chorus—

 _I’m burning bridges tonight_  
_light the match and watch the fuse blow_

And then Nate was there, because Nate was on top of this shit (still), with his rough voice filling in the lower octave below Lauren and the girls in the crowd, and oh yeah, Josh was supposed to be singing too—

 _I’m burning bridges tonight_  
_cables sparking, letting go,_

there was this moment where it peaked, or where you thought it would peak, a theater-wide catharsis that was just building, building—

 _I turned my back on you but you tried to drag me down;_  
_won’t look back, the river’s boiling and I REFUSE TO DROWN_

—and then the instrumental break, pounding away. Okay. Barre chords sliding up and down the frets, a foundation for Nathan’s blazing solo work, easy, easy, just had to keep pace, he could do it in his sleep.

It afforded him a look at Ian.

Well, fuck.

The kid didn’t fall on his face, Josh’d give him that. Didn’t even run headlong into anything on his stumbling course off stage, although not for lack of near-misses. Made it all the way to the industrial garbage barrel before he heaved, and if Isaiah and Matt hauled him the last couple of stuttering steps, well, all the better for the side-stage floor.

A glance toward Kate and the collection of other friends and family stage left, and then back at the tangle of people holding Ian up through another round of retching a dozen feet stage right, and then back left toward Lauren and Nathan, and what else was there to do? They kept going, kept jamming, transitioning out of “Burning Bridges” but keeping the chord progression intact. The crowd was murmuring in confusion at being cut off two-thirds of the way through the song, but basically rolled with the punches, so, good. A couple of hand signals later they dropped out to let Danny take a solo, sticks flying, and that was enough to get the entire venue back in the moment. Josh had a silent Conversation of Significant Looks with Lauren that ended with her subtly but decisively shooing him offstage and then gearing up to layer a bassline over Danny’s beat. Okay. Stage right.

“Matt!” He had to yell to be heard. Dramatic gestures worked too. “Switch, man.” Matt nodded, and grabbed the offered guitar. The tech hung back for a second, clearly debating whether to go onstage, but he didn’t have in-ears and the monitors were a dozen feet out, so that decision was made for him. More confused noise from the audience when some unknown redhead stepped out, but the chords fell into place and Nate took off again and that was enough.

Alright.

Ian.

The lack of acknowledgment in Ian’s eyes when Josh showed up was kind of fucking scary. Isaiah was holding him up to grip the trash can, just in case, and impatiently scanning the wings for “those goddamn EMTs.” (Josh briefly considered coming to the medics’ defense, but decided that Isaiah would probably censor himself once the folks in question showed up.)

“I got him.” Josh had pulled out one of his in-ears to talk to Matt, and his attempt to remove the other was thwarted by the tangled wires. He yanked, hard, and left the earpieces hanging from their wires over the collar of his shirt. And then—

Ian in his arms, fragile, again. “Hey, buddy.” Too quiet for Ian to hear him over the noise, but hopefully comforting all the same. Then, loud, with gestures, “You done?”

The way Ian blanched at the pantomime (which, okay, may have been a little more graphic than necessary) said _maybe not_ loud and clear. Alright, then.

“Hang tight.”

A weirdly slow blink, like Ian couldn’t get his eyes to focus.

And then a woman with blue gloves and a radio and a no-nonsense look showed up, and Ian was being lowered to the floor, and at some point there was a surprisingly well-orchestrated switch from the on-stage vamping to the between-set music and a more reasonable volume, and everyone who’d been onstage crowded side-stage, and everyone who’d been stage left was stuck with the choice of walking across the stage to get to them or making their way the long way around, so they mostly stayed put. The house lights stayed low, so Raina must’ve been hedging her bets that they’d be coming back out. Josh wasn’t sure what to expect on that front.

The verdict from the in-house medic surprised precisely no one: fever (hovering above 101 in spite of the massive amount of meds in his system), probable ear infection, dehydration (even before the vomiting, although that wasn’t going to help), vertigo, just general the-fuck-are-you-doing-out-of-bed shit.

Josh had ended up going to the floor with Ian and found himself stuck there during all the poking and prodding. He twisted a bit, trying to get feeling back into his left foot.

“Sorry.” Ian. Whispered through cracked lips.

“Shut up, you’re fine.” Josh decided not to mention how stupidly glad he was to hear Ian’s voice, no matter how broken.

“Can we just—” trying to push himself up— “get back out there? The kids’ll…”

“The kids’ll be fine.” Isaiah, authoritative.

“But—”

Isaiah ignored him and turned back to the EMT, phone in hand. “So, where do we go from here? Drag him back to bed? ER?”

She looked Ian up and down again, considering. “There’s an urgent care that’s still open; they can get him hooked up with a prescription. And an IV, if they decide he needs it, which wouldn’t surprise me. Here, I’ll give you the address.”

Ian was still struggling to push himself to his feet. Danny grabbed his hands and got him vertical, carefully, then glanced back out toward the crowd. “We should get back out there.” At Ian’s move forward: “Not you.”

Ian whined in protest, but it was Lauren who pointed out, “We should probably prove to all of them” —tipping her head toward the crowd— “that he’s still alive. Who knows what’s going around on Twitter already.”

“Whatever, just make it quick.” Isaiah sounded pissed, but Josh was pretty sure that was a cover for _scared_ and _guilty,_ because yeah, he could relate. “The Uber’s on its way.”

Ian nodded, and Josh let the brief discussion of how to finish the show go over his head. (They settled on: cut it short but not too short; stick to stuff Lauren and the fans could handle without a second lead.) He was drained in a way that overwhelmed him, and the word _complicit_ kept kicking its way into his head. _(He’s fine,_ he shot back, _it’s not like he’s dying. He’s a grown fucking dude, just needs some time.)_

And then they were on again. Josh almost forgot to put his in-ears back in, but (with some untangling help from Matt) managed to get everything sorted by the time Ian got onstage to wave to the screaming crowd, and to their family and friends in the wings who’d been anxiously milling around. He didn’t even sway. That fucker, born to be onstage, fighting for it every moment, even as Josh was trying to escape. _(Just need some time.)_ Lauren pressed a kiss to Ian’s forehead and sent him back toward Isaiah, and Danny counted them in, because _this isn’t normal, what we do,_ and so the show went on.

. . .  
. . .

  
They didn’t talk on the drive back to the hotel, or in the elevator on the way to the fourth floor. Danny and Nate disappeared into their room without looking up from their phones. Lauren hung uncertainly in Josh’s doorway for a minute or two, but when Raina showed up and asked if she wanted a drink, the answer was an exhausted, “Fuck, yeah,” and then Josh and Kate were alone.

A little more silence, a little more pacing, a little more sitting on the edge of the bed, unsure of what to do.

Kate was sitting in the desk chair, watching him. “He’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Josh sighed. The painkillers from before the show were wearing off. He couldn’t figure out how to get the tension in his jaw to release.

Kate moved to the bed to sit next to him; still, and quiet, and everything else the chaos of the road wasn’t. “Long day,” she said, finally.

He half-laughed. “Long week.” Reconsidering: “Long tour.” Then, quiet, “Long….” He shook his head, not sure how to finish.

Kate’s voice was gentle, like she knew it would hurt. “Long time since home.”

A huff of a laugh that was also a sob, because yeah, that was it right there. He couldn’t say anything for a minute; just laced his fingers into hers. Nodded. Blinked back tears.

“We’ve got some time,” she said. “I don’t have to head out until after lunch tomorrow.”

It wasn’t enough time, not even close, but he nodded numbly in agreement.

“I’m up for whatever. I’m assuming you don’t want to go out at this point, but we could go downstairs with Lauren and Raina and get a drink?”

He shook his head. He didn’t know what he wanted, exactly, but he was pretty sure it didn’t involve leaving the room.

She looked at him again, and he must’ve looked pretty pathetic, because she took pity, and took control. “Tell you what. I’ll call room service, get a bottle of wine, some food—” as soon as she mentioned it, his stomach growled; there’d been snacks in the green room but the question of a real dinner had been forgotten in the chaos; “—maybe some dessert, and we’ll just hang out here in this obscenely fluffy bed. Yes?”

_Yes._

“Hamburgers okay?”

“Perfect.” His voice was rough, but steadying.

She squeezed his hand and got up to make the call.

. . .  


After— after the hamburgers and the rich chocolate cake and more wine than he’d planned on drinking; after he’d leaned in for a kiss and been pushed-rolled-pinned-down for more— after, he lay in the darkness with Kate draped over his chest, breathing in her sweat and the scent of her hair.

“You ever been t’ Yosemite?” Slurred and sleepy, spilled into the darkness.

“Hmm?” Kate had been almost asleep, breathing slow, but now she yawned and considered. “Yeah, once, with my family when I was a kid.” Then, more awake, looking up at him: “It’s amazing. Pictures don’t come close. You look up at the walls from the valley floor and you just… can’t even wrap your mind around how tall they are.”

“We should go.”

“I thought that was going to be a you-and-Ian trip?” Curious, not accusing.

He shrugged. “’S not meant to be… _exclusive._ Just not something I’d do alone.” He laughed. “And this way, I don’t have to share a tent with Ian. He can find someone else to kick in his sleep.”

She laughed, and yawned. “I’m in.” Then, choosing her words carefully: “So would this be… between tours? Or…?”

He shook his head, trying to clear it. “I dunno. I….” It was hard to formulate a plan when he was half-asleep and blissed out and a little more than buzzed, but it felt like the answer was there, buried just under the surface. “I might… take some time off.” He blinked, letting the words sink in. It wasn’t as scary as he’d thought to hear them out loud.

Kate smiled softly and kissed him again: forehead, nose, lips. “Yosemite it is.”

. . .  


At 1 a.m., there was a group text from Isaiah. They’d be back in ten. Okay. Clothes on. Right. Josh tried to work his way out of bed without waking up Kate, but she was already blinking up at him sleepily.

“Ian and Isaiah are on their way. You don’t have to get up.” He’d made it as far as sitting on the edge of the bed, and had to stop for balance.

“Mmkay” —through a yawn, pushing herself up to sit beside him.

He got an arm around her and pulled her tight. Kissed her hair. “I’ll be back.” Okay, up.

Nate, Danny, and Lauren were already in the hallway, trailed by Raina, who seemed unsure of whether to go or stay but did, in the end, stick around. They didn’t say much, just leaned against the walls until Josh remembered that he had the key to Ian’s room and let them in. Nate turned up the heat and Lauren moved some dirty clothes off the bed, but there wasn’t much else they could do. The wait stretched out, tense and silent, until the _ding_ of the elevator at the end of the hall brought them back to the door.

Ian was pale and trembling, wrapped up in Isaiah’s jacket, but he was walking under his own power. Lauren was the one to meet him halfway down the hall and get an arm around his waist to walk him the rest of the way back; Isaiah’s hands were full of stuff that the clinic must’ve given them, haphazardly shoved into a plastic bag that was starting to rip.

Ian dropped onto the edge of the bed and sat there, eyes closed, not taking off his coat or his shoes.

“So.” Isaiah dropped the bag onto the desk, where it split, sample packs of pills spilling out onto the wood. “It was pretty much what the EMT said. Antibiotics, painkillers, an IV to get some fluids back in him,” —Ian rubbed at the band-aid on the back of his hand— “lots of sleep. No show tomorrow.” There was a hard edge to the words. No one argued. “Maddie’s going to pick up the prescriptions in the morning. Meantime, might be good if somebody stays in here tonight.”

A beat. Ian’s eyes downcast, hands fidgeting.

“No problem.” Lauren, to the rescue, again. She squeezed Ian’s knee. “Just let me go grab my stuff. And, uh—” she experimentally sniffed under an arm and made a face— “shower. I’ll be back in a few.”

Raina, who had never fully come in, followed her out. Nate slipped out too, along with Danny, who clapped Ian on the shoulder. “Glad you’re okay, man.” Ian nodded at the floor.

Isaiah had lined up the meds on the desk and was leaning against it. He looked… worn thin, like they were running up against the edge of how much he could deal with in one week. “Okay. Lauren’ll be back in a minute; I’ll be down the hall. My phone’s on if you need anything—” and, at Josh’s nod of acknowledgment, he was gone, too.

Ian was still sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at the floor, shoes on, looking utterly alone in the silence. Josh sighed and pulled over the desk chair so he could sit in front of Ian.

“Hey.” Gentle, again, for the hundredth time since this whole thing began. In the stillness, there were tears welling at the corners of Ian’s eyes; welling and spilling and trailing down his cheeks.

Thumbs sweeping over cheekbones; forehead to forehead, drawing the heat; a hand on the back of Ian’s head, pulling him in across the gap between them. “Okay.” Again; _déjà vu—_ “Long week.” Ian nodded against him. Josh drew a breath that was shaking before he even started to speak: “Long time since home.”

He kept it together, but barely. Pulled back to reassess. Ian’s nose was running down his lip, and he wiped it on his sleeve (Isaiah’s sleeve; they really had to stop ruining each other’s clothes) along with his eyes. A shaky, steadying breath. _Okay, okay, okay._ “Shoes?”

“Yeah.” Whispered and rough. No move to start. Josh got them off in two smooth motions this time, a practiced hand. He couldn’t decide if that felt more or less wrong than before.

“Coat? Jeans?”

Ian just shivered in reply.

“C’mon, dude, help me out. You can’t sleep in your street clothes.”

“There—” Ian cleared his throat. “There’s sweatpants in my bag.”

Ian had to stop three times in the process of getting dressed to sneeze messily in the vague direction of his arm, sets of two or three or four, _hih-chhhh, hik-CHU, heh…. kTCHUU,_ never quite managing to actually cover. There was a box of tissues, the good kind, from the bus, on the nightstand from the night before. Josh passed it over, but Ian didn’t take any until he’d finished getting changed, then blew his nose loudly and looked up at Josh like he wasn’t sure what to do next.

“Bed. C’mon.” Holding up the covers. Ian crawled in. Josh left the bathroom light on so Lauren wouldn’t trip coming in, but turned out the rest.

“Josh?”

“Yeah?”

No words, just a shadow moving in the dark. A hand reaching toward him. In the quiet, Josh could hear the breath crackle in Ian’s lungs.

“Yeah.”

And back in bed, _déjà vu_ all over again: Ian fever-warm next to him, sniffling quietly in the darkness. Josh rummaged around in the blankets until he found the tissue box and handed it over again, and was rewarded with another noseblow in his ear, then a coughing jag that went on far too long, then panting. _“Fuck.”_

“Do you ever just want to be done with this shit?” He hadn’t meant to ask.

Ian coughed again; took a careful breath. “This shit?” He swiped a hand at his nose. “Sure.” Sniffed, coughed, waved a hand in the darkness, encompassing… all of it. _“This_ shit?” He shook his head. “Nah.”

Josh shifted up on his elbow to look Ian in the eye, even as Ian burrowed deeper under the covers, finally starting to let himself relax. “Never?”

“Never.” Serious. “But that’s me, dude. I haven’t got anything really tying me to home.” He had to pause to pant and gather strength. “This is all I’ve ever wanted. Ever. And it’s happening, like a f—” his breath caught, and he stopped to cough— “like a fucking Disney movie.” He grinned tiredly. “Y’know, but with….” His smile wavered and crumpled, eyes fluttering, eyebrows drawn in frustration at the latest interruption, trying to talk through the impending sneeze— “with… huh… _ehh-tCHUU! ugh…_ width mbore boodze.” Josh huffed a laugh, held up the tissue box again, and waited for Ian to take one and blow, then fight off another sneeze, scrubbing the back of his non-bandaged hand roughly against his nose. “But you think Nathan never thinks of calling it all off? That he and Ellie don’t have that fight every six months?” Every sentence was punctuated with a sniff and a swipe at his nose with a tissue or wrist. His voice was a rough half-whisper. “That Danny doesn’t want to see his parents and his brothers and sisters and everybody in person and not just on a phone screen? That Lauren’s not sure this isn’t fucking up her mental health? It’s _normal,_ dude.” A faltering inhale, and a coughing jag that didn’t stop and didn’t stop, because it was more talking than he’d done in days and his lungs really weren’t ready for an inspirational speech. Finally, he took a breath that didn’t catch. “Well, not normal. The whole fucking situation is not normal. But wanting to leave? Yeah. Pretty fucking normal, considering.”

“So you…” Josh knew he should stop, that he should let Ian sleep, but there was just one more thing. “So if I… if I wanted to… get away from all of this for a while…?”

“I don’t want you to go.” Ian’s burst of energy, weak as it had been, had already faded, and he sounded exhausted again, a whisper from behind closed eyes. “But I love you and I want you to be happy, so….” He shrugged in the darkness and opened his eyes. “Do you think you’ll come back?”

Josh was quiet for a minute, imagining a life of days spent behind a desk; teaching guitar to kids after school and on weekends; moving to Chicago and getting an apartment with Kate; Saturday nights in crowded bars with her friends, watching someone else’s band; open mic nights, alone in the spotlight on stage. It didn’t feel like freedom; not really, not the way that he’d hoped. It felt like the beginnings of a black hole opening up in the part of him that couldn’t live without the thrill of creating something that came from all of them, more than the sum of its parts; without the protection of having four other people by his side in the face of the lights and the crowds; without this little family they’d made.

His voice shook a little, but the words were sure. “I’ll come back.” And then, muffled, buried in Ian’s sudden embrace: “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Mm, be miserable, probably.” Ian nuzzled into Josh’s shoulder, looking for warmth. “You’re good at that.”

Josh shoved him in protest, but not hard; when Ian shoved back, it was with insistence. “Go. We’ll figure out the details later. You’ve got another 12 hours with your girl.” A rush of warmth, of _yes,_ of _Kate—_ “Make it count.”

In the doorway, in the darkness of the bedroom and the light of the hall, between _here_ and _there,_ the uncertainty finally felt like possibility. Like hope. Josh grinned.

“I will.”

. . .  
. . .

 

 


	7. Epilogue

. . .  
. . .

  
“Holy shit.” Ian, breathless from the backseat, craning his head to look before just sticking his whole head and shoulders out the window like an awestruck dog.

“Dude!” Josh had been glancing at him in the rearview mirror, but nearly swerved off the road when he realized just how far out the window Ian had thrown himself. Tyler, laughing, pulled Ian back into the car, and Kate put a reassuring hand on Josh’s knee.

“There’s a spot to pull over right up there.” Tyler leaned between the front seats to point it out. “My family always stopped there when we were kids. The hour-and-a-half drive in from the edge of the park was a little too much to do in one go. Yup, right there.”

And then they were stepping out into the impossibly bright sunlight with a rocky river on their left and valley walls that just went up, up, up on their right.

“Holy shit.” Echoing Ian.

“I know.” Tyler grinned at the three of them, then grabbed Ian by the arm and pulled him across the road toward the stream. Josh interlaced his fingers with Kate’s and followed, forcing himself, for a few seconds, at least, to watch the traffic rather than the view.

They scrambled from rock to rock until they were out in the middle of the river that ran low in mid-summer, carving out their own space away from the families around them. Feet in the water, squinting through sunglasses, faces turned up to the sun. Ian laid back on his rock next to Josh’s, arms spread wide, basking in the warmth. Josh watched him with a bittersweet smile twisting at his lips. They’d finished out the spring-and-early-summer tour, and now the break stretched out before them. Josh had stuck it out — Matt had filled in for a couple of shows while Josh took some time to go see his family, but other than that he’d been there — but he’d told them he needed six months. Summer, real summer, and then through Christmas in Michigan with long weekends in Chicago with Kate, and then he’d be back in the new year. Probably. That part wasn’t set in stone.

Ian managed to reach over and pat him on the knee without falling off his own rock, but it was a near thing. “Here and now, yeah?”

Deep breath. Here and now. Kate, radiant under the summer sky, copper hair floating in the breeze; Tyler, up from L.A. for the adventure, relishing the chance to show off his home state and get out of the city, back in the wild where he belonged; Ian, giddy and grinning, unworried about the future.

Here and now, and the rest could wait.

Josh laid back and closed his eyes, soaking in the sun.

. . .  
. . .

 


End file.
